Plus those who have the appropriate extension installed in Firefox. (almost all of the features that Opera provides have extensions available for Firefox).
Have you looked at the code behind Sitepoint and vBulletin? We would hope that Sitepoint upholds best practice, but sadly that isn’t always the case.
When people expect something to happen, not wanting it to happen but because they know that it usually does, is that any reason to perpetuate the problem? No - it means it’s time to take a stand and do things properly.
The idea that opening external links in a new page would “keep people on your site” was debunked long ago. People who want to stay on your site will stay on it, or come back to it. People who want to navigate away from your site aren’t going to be fooled into spending more time on it just because it’s still open in the background.
Forcing any particular browsing behaviour will annoy some people. Giving people control over their own browsing behaviour may initially seem daunting, but is a far better strategy in the long run.
Careful that you don’t apply a subjective preference to all web users. How do you know what people want? Have you conducted a study with the specific use-cases we’re talking about? Has anyone for that matter? Speaking for myself, I actually like knowing that links I click from a vB forum will open a new tab. It’s become a part of my workflow in using forums, and it’s easier than a Ctrl+Click, because it opens the tab AND goes to that tab, whereas Ctrl+Click requires a subsequent Ctrl+Tab to achieve the same thing.
I would say that the best way to accomplish what you suggest without inhibiting web developers would be to allow a browser config option to override the target attribute. That way, users like you could turn it off completely, and users like me could leave it default, and web developers could just develop their apps the way they desire them to work, and not worry about organizations telling them how their apps must work, or web users feeling like the implemented functionality is obtrusive.
Of course, standards organizations like to inhibit developers and tell them how to do things. It’s why they exist. Inhibition and control is the definition of a standard. (Communists!!!)
Thankfully, all the standards in the world can’t make you do something you don’t want to… that’s the power of freedom. 
That’s the wonderful thing about free will. One can make their sites perform a certain way and I can make my sites perform another way.
Nielsen, the guru of usability, has been saying it since the dawn of time, at least as far as opening other web pages goes: Open New Windows for PDF and other Non-Web Documents (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox)
I would say that the best way to accomplish what you suggest without inhibiting web developers would be to allow a browser config option to override the target attribute. That way, users like you could turn it off completely, and users like me could leave it default, and web developers could just develop their apps the way they desire them to work, and not worry about organizations telling them how their apps must work, or web users feeling like the implemented functionality is obtrusive.
That sounds like a confusing mish-mash mess, when no-one - not users and not web authors - can have any reasonable expectation of what anything will do.
Why is it so difficult to understand that if people want to open links in a new tab/window, they can do that themselves? It’s like authors who put ‘print’ links on a page that do nothing but send the existing page to the printer … if all you feed people is soup, they’ll never learn to chew.
The user is a blackbox, if you use _blank for the sake of spawning then the ‘web author’ is essentially ‘dictating’ that the user will have to view the new page somewhere else. Leaving no direct means of getting back or focus or indication the new window has opened for that matter.
Stevie wouldn’t have to turn it off it wasn’t done by using target on the anchor in the first place, which of course target and _blank was only supposed to be ever used with Frameset anyway.
I’d agree that the forum has members that login, in which case they may want to have more than one page instance open. Therefore if you wanted external site links to be opening in a ‘new instance’ then you could alter the browser configuration file to allow that or use client-side script. Thus those both user groups are catered for, i.e. user-agents with or without JS. Therefore the web author would allow the ‘user freedom’ instead of restricting user freedom and imposing the author’s own idea onto the visitor.
Hate to break it to you, Jakob Nielsen is a human being, and having read much of his work, I believe that he suffers from some form of OCD (though I’m no mental health expert, by any means). If that statement were accepted as accurate, however, it could be extrapolated that his opinion could’t be trusted as reflective of what’s best for the general public - only his research could. Thus, in my opinion, you have to pick and choose which pieces of Nielsen’s work are gems and which are polished turds.
Besides that, you really have to take the opinion of the owner of www.useit.com with a grain of salt. Nielsen missed entirely 2/3 of the game of usability: 1) Making people WANT to use it, and 2) Following unwritten “rules” that are defined by how people ACTUALLY use things, instead of how they’re INTENDED to be used. Someone seriously needs to buy that guy a Mac. 
W3C wasn’t doing much better with their own website until about 2 years ago…
FYI, Nielsen’s study that you linked to doesn’t take the case I mention into account… nor does it take browser tabs into account, as those are a new phenomenon and the study is 6+ years old. Besides that, using generic studies to apply a blanket rule to all use-cases is an over-generalized look at how people use the web.
It’s the right of the builder of an application to architect the desired workflow of his users. What you’re saying is akin to stating that all Architects must follow exactly the same process in building design because it’s what people expect. Your app is your playground. If it’s best in the context of your app to open a new window, then by all means do it. I’ve presented a solid case with vBulletin links opening in _blank. I stand by my statement that _blank can be good when used well, as is the case with just about ANYTHING.
Besides all that, the fact that you mention Nielsen at all makes me believe you’re not even reading my entire posts anymore, so I’m going to end this discussion here, as I’ve already plainly stated my opinion, and really have nothing more of value to add - this debate has become circular, and it’s time to end it. Thanks for the interesting conversation!
I wanted to break the second point down more, but can’t edit my post anymore…
www.UseIt.com is a blog. Period. But it’s not a usable blog. Because 99.99% of blogs are created with Wordpress, and thus Wordpress’ layout / format is what users expect when they encounter a blog (not Nielsen’s proprietary layout).
By implementing a set of rules based on his beliefs of what’s usable instead of actual use-cases, Nielsen, the “guru of usability”, as a result has arguably created the least usable blog on the web!!!
Cheers.
Wow, I’d never stumbled on Nielsen before. He’s the Usability Taliban: “Thou shalt follow these fundemental principles of web design, upon pain of death, or at least flogging. Never mind that doing so produces websites that drain you of the will to live.”
(And by the way, his site looks like something I might have found using Archie. 
)
He’s written a number of books all based on EXTENSIVE usability research. I am not aware of anyone else who has performed so much usability research as he has involving so many tens of thousands (or is it millions) or users to see what they do and don’t find usable. For example the only stats I have seen on what percentage of people viewing search results actually click on the first (or tenth) link on the results page is in one of his books.
What transio is saying (if I understand it correctly) is that it can sometimes be difficult to tell what statements he makes based on the actual research and which he makes that are purely his own opinion.
As for expectations of how web pages should behave and to bring it back on topic - if people expect links to open the new page in the current window (which is what most links do and therefore is what people should expect) then any links that do not do that will be less usable. Of course anyone using IE, Firefox, or Opera can easily add a userscript to strip any target attributes out of a web page but why should they have to. There is no such attribute as target just as there is no such attribute as “idiot” and no one expects to have to strip idiot attributes out of web pages so they shouldn’t need to strip other non-existant attributes such as target out of the page either.
I’d take issue with that. For a start, most people using corporate networks won’t have the necessary privileges to run user scripts. For a second, the vast (if not overwhelming) majority of people wouldn’t have the faintest idea what a userscript is, what it could do for them, or how to install it. You’re talking about a small handful of techies there, not the web browsing population at large.
Nielsen has always fully admitted that graphic design is not his strength, which is why he hasn’t wasted his time trying to make his site look funky and failing. He doesn’t think all sites should look like his does - just recognises that his strengths lie in content rather than visuals.
But once you get past the boring looks, it’s a very useful site. He has done a tremendous amount of research into usability, not just on the web but in other fields as well, probably more than anyone else. He does know what he’s talking about. Few if any of his guidelines would stop you from creating an interesting and attractive design. There’s nothing there that should drain you or your visitors of the will to live. What it should do is to stop you from creating sites that drain your visitors of the will to live, because it should stop you from creating sites that are confusing, difficult or impossible to use.
BULLCOOKIES… though spoken like someone who probably still uses tables for layout, still hasn’t mastered how numbered heading tags should be used, still practices presentational layout, and vomits up a markup to content ratio in excess of 4:1
You know, types of coders who use multiple spans and entities instead of a list, strong on elements that should not be receiving emphasis, same class four to six times in a row on paragraphs around non-paragraph elements, spans doing bold’s job, nonsensical heading orders, vague/meaningless classes like “block-block-1” or “block block-block”? Title attributes redundant to the content of the element they are applied to?
You know, the same types who declare EVERY font on the page in px on a fixed width layout that isn’t even 1024 friendly?
… and making it HARDER to get it to work in various browsers since they all have DIFFERENT error correcting behaviors. Lemme guess, sleazing out IE conditionals for EVERYTHING with five to ten separate CSS includes and five to ten scripts to boot? You’re sites are probably so knee deep in hacks to work cross browser you can’t even find the code for the regular ones in it – all for behavior issues you could have avoided by using valid markup and good coding practices.
“target” was deprecated in non-frameset doctypes for a REASON, replicating that behavior using javascript is just as half assed as using it in the first place! Never force a page behavior on the user – what, is it too hard to educate the people who actually want that behavior to middle-click?
Of course as a user for me it’s funny - on sites where people use target typically every link I don’t want to open in a new window usually does, and every link I want to doesn’t.
I always laugh at the people who make more work for themselves sleazing out pages any old way, and then claim it’s “simpler” or “easier” to not validate or even have good coding practices.
ESPECIALLY when it usually just looks like they’re basically unwilling to take their coding knowledge past 1998.
I have my issues with Nielsen, and I agree with 99% of the design world that his site design is extremely uninteresting, but to blast him as heavily as some of the posters in this thread are doing is, in my personal opinion (i.e. not necessarily SitePoint’s or anyone else’s) displaying a woeful level of ignorance and oppositional thinking. Same with the dismissal of validating site code through their DOCTYPES. No one’s saying to use validation, or Nielsen, as if they are words spoken from the heavens, but both have been proven to be exceptionally useful and applicable over a period of years and in millions of Web designs.
On the contrary, it’s a direct response to the woeful level of obliviousness and herd-mentality of the opposition. I have tremendous respect for Nielsen - I’ve read many of his and his partner Norman’s books. I would venture as far as to assume I’ve read more Nielsen-Norman than anyone arguing against me.
BUT:
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Nielsen’s research does not support a statement that target=“_blank” is always wrong in the context of the web today. His research is out of date and generic in scope - and it doesn’t address the very common case today of User Generated Content. All vBulletin links, All Wordpress Blog comment URLs, All Facebook link posts, and All Twitter links open in _blank, and the list goes on and on and on (and ON). You people cannot honestly tell me that you believe “most web users” today are confused when a Facebook wall post opens external links a new browser window. Stop quoting 10-year-old Nielsen studies and use your own brains, please! Do you people honestly believe what you’re saying?
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Nielsen’s blog is less usable than a default Wordpress blog. Not because it’s ugly, and not because it’s not better thought out, but simply because there’s only one Nielsen blog, and there are millions of Wordpress blogs. UseIt.com may be an “objectively” more usable layout than Wordpress (all things equal) but that’s only if you ignore the fact that the more people use a given system, the more generally understood and therefore “usable” it is (by definition). This is Usability 101… I can make a blog that more people will understand than UseIt.com in 5 minutes… default Wordpress installation. Blam, done. Any of the millions of Wordpress users in the world will innately understand exactly how it works without having to figure it out (like UseIt.com). Oh, and it’ll be prettier too, cause Nielsen’s blog is also damn ugly.
Ignorance, Max, is ignoring facts when they’re staring you in the face… Nielsen deserves respect, but I’ve yet to see a single argument against either of the above 2 facts that isn’t entirely based on the fallacious “Nielsen can’t be wrong, so you must be” assumption.
I don’t know that user-generated content is all that different from editorial content, in that respect. How many people do you think distinguish between the two?
All vBulletin links, All Wordpress Blog comment URLs, All Facebook link posts, and All Twitter links open in _blank, and the list goes on and on and on (and ON). You people cannot honestly tell me that you believe “most web users” today are confused when a Facebook wall post opens external links a new browser window. Stop quoting 10-year-old Nielsen studies and use your own brains, please! Do you people honestly believe what you’re saying?
I honestly believe that, barring the expectation and uncertainty that a link might (or might not) open in a new window, the web would be a better and more user-friendly place if links to other websites opened in the current window/tab.
Part of that is because it leaves users in control, part of it is about the complexity caused by tabs and windows, part of it is because it reduces the scope for confusion (particularly among less savvy users, and people who are in some way disabled and/or relying on assistive technology that means they may not be able to perceive the change in the browsing context in the same way that you or I can), and a large chunk of it is because of the inconsistent implementation and expectation of the status quo.
If all links to other web pages, whether internal or external (and I’ll exclude applications, console windows and other special cases), opened in the same window/tab, everyone would always know what to expect, and that makes it easier for everyone. What we have now is a situation where some sites have all links opening in the normal way, some sites have all external links opening in a new tab/window, some sites have some external links opening in a new tab/window, some sites have some internal and external links opening in a new tab/window, and a few sites have all links opening in a new tab/window. Are you really trying to tell me that that’s a good situation?
- Nielsen’s blog is less usable than a default Wordpress blog. Not because it’s ugly, and not because it’s not better thought out, but simply because there’s only one Nielsen blog, and there are millions of Wordpress blogs.
In what way do you find it “less usable”? (That’s a genuine question, not a rhetorical put-down).
I’ve never had any trouble using UseIt, it’s a piece of cake to find what you want. It’s all there, listed from 1965 (or whenever it was it started) through to 2011. On Wordpress blogs (or most other blogs), I struggle to find what I’m looking for, even when I know it’s there, if I don’t know the exact title of the entry and when it was written. That might be OK on a diary-type site or one that is very current-focused, but when it’s essentially a series of articles that just gets added to every week or two, it becomes a lot more difficult to find an old article about a particular topic.
Nielsen deserves respect, but I’ve yet to see a single argument against either of the above 2 facts that isn’t entirely based on the fallacious “Nielsen can’t be wrong, so you must be” assumption.
I don’t agree with absolutely everything Nielsen says, I do like to consider and analyse the options and outcomes for myself (because, even when I do end up agreeing with him, which is most of the time, until I’ve internalised why something is the case, I don’t like doing it), and the question of whether to open links in new windows/tabs is one where I have found many cogent and coherent arguments that align my view with Nielsen’s. The only argument against it seems to be “Everybody else is doing it”, which is hardly an ennobling cry to action. And anyway, not everyone else is doing it. The most popular and most powerful website of all opens external links in the current browsing context. Are you going to argue with Google?
If Nielsen showed up here as an unknown newbie, looking for help with some aspect of web page design, and posted a link to his site, he’d be subjected to a virtual torrent of abuse by the resident bully-boys.
What is the argument anyway that many Facebook and Twitter users are sheep or something and have flock mentality? I’d agree with that. Allow the site to dictate their actions and thus many ‘mindless comply’ and resign themselves to a new window spawning as ‘normal’ behaviour. Because they cannot; or do not know how to do otherwise; or are happy being oblivious; or don’t think for themselves.
I assume in essence what is being asked; is why would something as perverse as _blank have to be used when obviously JS is the appropriate tool. Thus this mystic figure of 5% is likely to be the people that would prefer not to see a new instance being spawned by default. Thus those people can make up their own minds of how to open a new page. What is worse; when there isn’t indication that the link on many sites will attempt such a feat.
I don’t think anyone is arguing that in some instances a new window would be good; it’s more the case of how the author writes the method or (informs or doesn’t) the user that the link has been designed to open in such a way.
Thanks, Steve… well thought out reply. I think this should clarify all my points and (finally) sum up what I have to say in this discussion.
I think all blog readers recognize the difference between an article and comments on articles. And I guarantee that today, with the pervasiveness of UGC and off-site links opening in _blank, more people would be confused if browsers suddenly stopped opening new windws/tabs… it’s become an expected behavior in a vast part of the web, and just because you are personally annoyed by it doesn’t mean everyone is (I, for example, like it).
I honestly believe that, barring the expectation and uncertainty that a link might (or might not) open in a new window, the web would be a better and more user-friendly place if links to other websites opened in the current window/tab.
Again, I think it’s expected behavior that off-site or non-navigational links will usually open in a new window, whereas navigation elements will keep you on-site. An example of a case where a _blank link is confusing can be seen on marijuana.com - clicking “legal buds” in the main menu will take you to another website, who they sold that link to. This is confusing to the user, and probably the type of activity Nielsen’s study addressed. At the very least, we can assume he mixed this in with other types of _blank links and possibly skewed his results based on this. Nevertheless, you don’t see _blank links often in navigation today, but it was pretty pervasive in 1999. Today, you see a lot of _blank links in UGC, which has become a large part of the web’s content in the last 5 years. Nielsen’s study was conducted before the pervasiveness of UGC, so it can’t properly address it.
Part of that is because it leaves users in control, part of it is about the complexity caused by tabs and windows, part of it is because it reduces the scope for confusion (particularly among less savvy users
Less savvy users don’t even know they can open a new tab with a Ctrl+Click, and are more reliant on the application developer to produce the proper experience for them. App developers _blank link to UGC to protect the web user’s experience, e.g. by ensuring a single step back to the original site (if the user clicked many links in the new site), or in cases where an off-site link leads to a website with circular back-blocking or other spammy annoyances that interrupt the user’s return to the main site. By _blank linking, the original context is preserved, and a simple path back is always available by simply closing a tab.
What we have now is a situation where some sites have all links opening in the normal way, some sites have all external links opening in a new tab/window, some sites have some external links opening in a new tab/window, some sites have some internal and external links opening in a new tab/window, and a few sites have all links opening in a new tab/window. Are you really trying to tell me that that’s a good situation?
I’m trying to tell you that it’s become understood that on-site and navigational links should open in the same window, and off-site & UGC links should open in _blank. Nielsen should update his blog to reflect what web users actually expect today, and web developers should conform to the standard of what people expect from websites today, as that’s the real definition of usability.
In what way do you find [UseIt.com] “less usable” [than Wordpress]? (That’s a genuine question, not a rhetorical put-down).
Well, if I go to another “usability expert’s” blog (oh I don’t know, UsabilityBlog) I get the experience I expect from a blog. I don’t even have to look around to know I’ll find a search feature, recent posts, categories, and a calendar of posts by date on the right, a summary-view of recent posts on the left, and a simple navigation with links to static pages across the top. This has become the definition of a blog, due to the pervasiveness of Wordpress. Any deviation from this standard Wordpress layout makes a blog less usable. Going to UsabilityBlog.com, I know exactly how to use it, and I innately know what everything does without even reading the tool headers. The first time I visited UseIt.com, I had to browse around, read everything, and figure out what everything does and where it is… it probably took me, an experienced web user, about 5 minutes to figure it out.
This leads us back to my statement on design. Design is important to usability, because even if you provide “objectively” more usable tools, your users won’t give them the required time to learn them if they’re not attractive. So the average web user wouldn’t spend the time to learn how Nielsen’s proprietary blog format works. If it were a standard Wordpress layout, more people would use it. Nielsen takes the stance that his knowledge is attraction enough. That may be fine for his own blog, but doesn’t show much understanding of the world outside UseIt.com - his clients won’t have the same draw - many are offering parity products that don’t pull people on their own merit.
Again, I reiterate that Nielsen should take cues from Apple. Apple constantly changes up UI for the sake of tweaking usability (in web, software interfaces, and in industrial design). They got people used to these new and atypical UIs by making them WANT to use them - to try them out - to figure them out. They did this by packaging these new, weird UIs in beautiful and idyllic ways (and building a marketing strategy to reinforce this). People will accept change more readily if it appears to be a step towards perfection. UseIt.com superficially appears to be a step away from perfection, which is why the layout never caught on.
I don’t agree with absolutely everything Nielsen says
That’s good. No one should agree with everything anyone says, including Nielsen, the W3C, Steve Jobs, Obama, or even the Dhali Lama. There is no such thing as an infallible human being.
The only argument against [_blank links] seems to be “Everybody else is doing it”, which is hardly an ennobling cry to action.
Again, to reiterate, the argument isn’t that everybody else is doing it. That’s an observation. The argument is that because such a vast majority of major services are doing it, users have grown to expect it. I speak only from my own perception, but what I say makes sense, and it really can’t be argued, because there’s no public study in existence to prove or disprove it. Given the info we have, we can only assume that if Facebook and Twitter are doing it, they’ve spent the appropriate dollars to ensure that the experience is generally expected by the user. And since we understand each other now, unless one of us is willing to fork up the bucks to conduct a study, further discussion on the point is just banter.
Yes. Yes I am. I find the behavior of the Google SERP annoying. After I’ve done a search, the chances that I’ll be visiting the site of only one of the search results, never to return, are just about zero. I’m going to click on one of the links, perhaps do some exploring there, and then I’m going to want to come back to the SERP and start poking around at some of the other results. Closing a tab is the easiest way to do that. Does anyone actually think that hitting “Back” half a dozen times is better?
All of the alternatives (mousewheel-click, CTRL-click, right-click/left-click) are just more complicated ways of doing what I suspect the vast majority of users want to do in the first place. Google’s default fails the usability test.