Jakob Nielsen pioneered these usability studies
in the 1990s.5 Many of his findings were obvious then, and are even more glaring now.
There are just some things that consistently frustrate users, no matter how badly they want
the information.
Don??™t break the Back button. It has been demonstrated in study after study that the
browser??™s Back button is one of the most-used tools for navigating the Web. No matter
how intuitive the menu system and architecture, people will always fall back on what they
know first, and the Back button is the simplest way to backtrack out of a dead end.
Opening links in new browser windows (see next item) or using Flash for the entire website
will render the browser??™s button useless.
Don??™t open new browser windows. There are very few instances in which launching a new
browser window serves a functional purpose. Never open new windows for external links.
If there is a legitimate concern that people will leave the site, there??™s not much to be done
to ease that fear. (Not providing the link at all is selfish development practice, and is not
going to hinder users from leaving your site to fire up Google.
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