Awards Criteria Question

[Fixen]

Originally Posted by jonathan lall

Good semantic HTML coding never, ever, opens a new window. Ever. Any consumer with half a brain, perhaps less, can do that himself when he wants to, and can tell when he's leaving a site (thus negating the helping hand webmasters might think they're giving when they open external links in a new window).

I believe this is why some sites are that annoying - they need to satisfy all levels of users, including complete idiots.

I think it's also a "flow" issue. The designer may intend the user to view a certain external site as a sidebar according to the "flow" of the site's content, and that after the user is satisfied with scanning over that outside information, he/she would close the extra window and continue with the content.

It's also a somewhat effective promotion tool in a sense. If the user is forced to click Back to look at the content again, that user won't have as much of a desire to view that external link again as having an extra window around.