User experience: Web links to China's National conditions new window opens

Introduction
Many usability experts keep the Link new window open (target= "_blank") as taboo. In their view, the problem with opening a new window is:

1. Users will not be able to control whether it opens on this page or in a new window. This is not to respect the user's choice.
2. The new window opens to make the taskbar more crowded.
3. Users are more expected to load new pages when the page is loaded.
4. The new window is open and the Back button becomes unavailable.

In fact, as mentioned in Neil Turner's article, you can open a new window in the following situations:

1. Link to a document (Pdf,word document, etc.)
2. Links to a large picture, it takes a certain amount of time to download.
3. The link points to a page that needs to be printed (the edge is pulled in-_-)

Smashingmagazine to supplement other situations

Said there are:

1. When the page load may interrupt an ongoing process.
2. Link is to point to a help.

In fact, I think, to sum up what they say is only two points. In the case of the following two points, you can open a new window:

1. Links point to a file (usually non-HTML) that needs to be downloaded locally or printed. This includes PDFs, doc, MP3, documents that need to be printed, and so on.
2. When the page load may interrupt an ongoing process, or make it impossible to complete. For example, you need help in front and back; When filling out a form, users want to see the privacy policy and so on.

Other usability issues and information architecture
The new window opens for the experience to increase the user's cognitive waiting time. At the same time, opening a new window is a pop-up that:

• It may be opened in the new tab style. This tab may not be actively activated, and will require the user to actively activate the tab to discover the page just clicked.

(In IE7, if the user does not check "always switch to a new tab when creating a new tab," The new tab that is opened using JavaScript will not be activated.) )
• May be opened in a new browser window. If this window is not automatically maximized, then the user will need to manually maximize it.
• Too many new windows will require the user to spend more time maintaining the windows.

The opening of a new window does affect availability. But often this problem does not lie in opening the new window itself. But the next layer of information architecture. The structure of foreign websites is relatively simple and the task flow is clear. So it's rarely used to open a new window. The use of new windows is mostly used on outbound links to avoid user churn. Domestic websites are often structurally complex, with no fixed, clear task flow. In the case of non-linear task flow, it is necessary to consider whether to use a new window to make up for the lack of information architecture.

New window open to make up for lack of navigation
Even so, the benefits of opening new windows to navigation are not widely discovered. Let's take a look at the IE7, from the homepage of the promotion Click to enter a product detail page process.

First, click on a promotional ad on the homepage (pop-up new window, the Product List page); The second step, the Product List page click on a Product (pop-up new window, appear merchandise detail page).

All clicks pop up a new window. Let's go back to IE7 's tab and see what happens to the tab after each step:

As you can see, like breadcrumbs, the tab increases this information at this time:

1. Where did you come from?
2. What's your path?
3. Where are you now?

Obviously, the user is not relying on the class destination path to click into the page. At this point, the tab is like a dynamic bread crumbs, make up for the site itself by the category of the lack of bread crumbs.

The other trivial
Another two points cannot be overlooked.

The 1th is about our country's national conditions. The Chinese People's social environment information is more congested. The Chinese will be better able to sustain their information than Western Internet users. This will enable Internet users in China to:

• Can tolerate more information under a single page.
• Can tolerate more open pages at the same time.
• A good information architecture is less effective in relation to the effectiveness of Chinese Internet users than in the west.

In addition, the 2nd, for the browser back button problem, I also think: China's internet users for the foreign users for the level of computer knowledge is less demanding. This makes it easier for our users to understand and think about turning off button clicks instead of Back buttons. In practice, also found in the domestic users than foreign users will not go to click the Back button (this is experience, no data support).

At last
Interaction designers are often weighing a variety of factors. From commercial appeal to user goal, from usability to aesthetics.

In the design principle or: "You should let users have control over the interface they are interacting with." "or" also: "should provide good default, reduce user control. ”

These, it seems, are contradictory.

According to the first, in extreme terms, we should design a link to a new window to open the settings so that the user can choose to control whether the link is open in a new window.

According to the second article, we should give the user a good idea of whether each link is open in a new window. and set it by default.

For the user, the first theorem is not always right. You throw all the interface controls to the user, and you're actually making a highly customizable interface. Sometimes it might be better to use good default. In fact, the first one is for the expert user, and the second one is for the novice.

How to balance the relationship between them is the responsibility of our interaction designers.

Finally, be sure to remember to go back to the middle of the user. In some usability tests and interviews I did, I found that novice and intermediate users did not show any apparent lack of understanding, frustration or frustration when they clicked on a link opened by a new window.