

Is _blank (HTML) basically an un-necessary popup? - msacks

&#60;p&#62;I've been writing a lot of blog articles lately and I usually add _blank for referenced links in my articles as to not lose my readers to another site, but then I thought, thats kind of unnecessary and here's why:&#60;p&#62;Whenever I am browsing an article and I open a new link, I always CMD click as to open the new link in a new browser tab anyway, so it's kind of redundant to put in _blank. Am I really retaining readers by adding _blank? Would appreciate your thoughts.
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makecheck
Whenever a web site has chosen a link target on my behalf, it has been wrong;
and what's more, "wrong" for me varies by device (e.g. on a desktop computer I
don't use tabs and often want full control over spawning windows; whereas on
an iPad with a tabbed browser I _usually_ want tabs created automatically, but
not always!).

I think the rule of "least surprise" applies; the least surprising thing for a
link to do is to not specify a target at all, leaving the behavior up to the
browser (where the browser in turn bows to user preferences and user overrides
such as contextual menus). For example, on my iPad I _already_ configure my
browser so that different-domain links open in new tabs but same-domain links
_do not_ , and I set preferences for a reason: because it's my preferred
behavior. These are things the web site couldn't possibly know about me, so
the web site basically risks annoying me if they try to override my
expectations.

If a web site _must_ feel the need to fiddle with "target" (which I personally
think they should not), I think the _bare minimum_ they should do is include
an icon or some hint next to non-standard links to indicate what will happen
when the links are used. This is another thing that browsers could
theoretically do by themselves, since they have all the information about link
targets at rendering time.

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kingofspain
I think it would somewhat depend on your audience. The tech crowd may find it
annoying but I know people who get immensely annoyed at having been taken away
from the site they are reading after clicking a link. That's possibly all
wrong but that's the way it is sometimes.

Personally I've been conditioned over the years to _expect_ _blank on blogs so
I don't think leaving it in will cause any great tremors in the force. TBH,
taking it out probably won't make any real difference anyway. So, er, my point
is

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adyus
Depending on who your target demographic is, you could make certain
assumptions. Without reading your blog (but judging by the CMD in your post),
I assume you use a Mac and write about tech. You could then assume that your
readers know how to open links in a new tab, thus you might decide to remove
the _blank. If your blog is geared toward readers with less experience, you
might want to leave it in.

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msacks
Indeed, I am a Mac user and the blog is about tech. Thanks for the feedback,
dropping the _blank.

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chetan51
For most cases (like yours), using _blank would just annoy users. If they want
a new tab, they'll open one, and if they don't but want to come back, they'll
just hit the back button.

The only place where using it makes sense to me is on a web app or sign up /
payment page which you don't want the user to accidentally leave and lose the
state of.

