Savvy Users have Changed Everything

Users are getting more and more used to how the web works and how to use their browser software. It’s true that if you ask the average person on the street what a browser is, they’re likely to say Google, but that doesn’t mean that when they open up “the internet” they don’t know what they’re doing. Using the web is part of the daily routine for millions of people, and those people are knowing more and more about how to use their browsers. People who know how their browser works know that they have the freedom to open links in another tab.

What About Old People?

Some people are not frequent users of the internet; they aren’t browser experts. The tabbed interface means nothing to them, and is only a confusion. They look at a browser, and when they click on something, they go somewhere. When they want to get back to where they have been, they use the Back Button. For this reason, opening a new window commits one of the cardinal sins of Usability: DON’T BREAK THE BACK BUTTON.
I've done UX testing on a good cross section of the population, but my favourite person to test on is my dad. He’s an "I am not good with computer" sort of person. When a site opens a new window, and he wants to get back to where he was, he cannot get back. He experiences extreme frustration, and stops web browsing. There have been several situations where he has been browsing to make a purchase, gotten frustrated, and left the computer to go to a store in person. That website lost a sale. This is a repeatable pattern; non-savvy person gets frustrated, closes entire window, does not finish call to action.

I’ve also done UX testing with people who have disabilities. The most frequently checked disability is sight loss; new tabs can present almost insurmountable problems to people who have poor sight. They cause confusion, frustration, and break the fundamental back button. The same is true for people who have cognition issues, or low sight, or manual dexterity issues.

Back Button Fatigue

This is not a real thing. People understand the back button, and are frustrated when it doesn't work. Savvy users can open in a new window, or use bookmarks for navigation; if they don’t want to use the back button to navigate, they don't.

Saving Website Resources

This is not an issue for a well crafted website. Your resources should be cached and have proper expires, and will load almost instantly and cost very little overhead after a back press.

Inaccurate Analytics

This is actually completely backwards. If a user is not reading your site, but has left it to read something else, your analytics should reflect this. They will then return to your site and finish reading. If you use external links, you end up with less useful information about how people are using your site; you over-report the time that people are spending on pages, and do not have an accurate representation of what is happening. Consider these user stories.

Overreporting your analytics is a bad idea. It give you false confidence and decisions based on bad data can give you bad results.

It's All About Freedom, Baby

The bottom line is this: as a UX designer and developer, you have to consider several different users, and how they can interact with your site. Going out and talking to people about how they interact with a site is very helpful, but it’s even more helpful to observe how people interact with a site, and what causes frustration and what does not. A User should be free to do whatever they want with a given link; open in a new tab, open in the same tab, whatever they want to do. The basic groups to consider here are:

Super Savvy users, Super Savvy users who are disabled: they’re already middle clicking on things they want to open later. I’m guessing that Anthony, the author, is in this group, because the flow described here is one for a quite savvy user. This group doesn’t care if you open new windows or not, unless you specify to open a new window *when they want to open the link in the same window*. Then they experience frustration.

Medium Savvy users: they don’t necessarily know to middle click, but they know how to navigate. When something opens in the same tab, they know to use the back button. If something opens in a new tab, they can switch tabs. They’ll take whatever you throw at them. They may experience frustration if they click on a link, and have to go back, or re-navigate to your site; this is typically a fairly mild, momentary frustration.

Medium-Savvy users who are disabled: New tabs and New windows are the single worst thing on the internet.

Non-Savvy users, Non-Savvy users who are disabled: new tabs are scary. The back button is broken. Nothing works the way I want it to work. I’m closing this whole internet and going to the store or watching TV. New tabs are causing extreme frustration.

In Conclusion

Making the web accessible should be one of your highest priorities as a UX designer. Everyone needs to be able to do everything on the internet. It’s not about being fair (though accessibility does aim to be fair); it’s about getting people to do what you want them to do on your website. The bottom line is that making an accessible website isn’t particularly difficult to do, and it will increase your bottom line, whether that is more traffic, more money, or more users.

All links should be left alone to be opened however users want to open them. If you are trying to control how your users experience the web, you’re doing a disservice to them and to your website. You’ll erroneously inflate some of your analytics, and you’ll frustrate a significant portion of your user base.

Other resources:

Nielsen: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9605.html

Webcredible: http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/web-usability/new-browser-windows.shtml

«a href="link to the article" rel="nofollow"»This article is wrong.«/a»

You're robbing the article of gravity, and your contribution to the success metric of the site (almost always number of clicks) is going to be tempered by the fact that whoever is doing analysis will see that they are getting traffic from a link that explains why they are wrong, and does not give their article any credence. That rel="nofollow" basically says "I'm sending you here but not because it is good."

First up, screen resolution. Over 85% of people accessing my site did so at a resolution at or exceeding a width of 1280px. That's a change from even a year ago, when only about 65% of people ran at that resolution. It's nice to see upgrades happening.

Next, browsers. IE comes in rocking about 15% of total hits, which made me go SQUEEEEEE. That's an awesome number to see, and even better: IE6 usage at 0.87%.

Operating System was interesting - the overwhelming majority of people were using Windows (80%+) with Mac a "close" second at a little north of 15%. The other 4% was split roughly between linux and android. Of interest amongst Windows users, though, was the almost even split between XP and 7 (41% to 38%) with Vista a distant third.

Location was perhaps the most interesting thing for me, with nearly 40% of all traffic coming from the USA. Canada was a close second, and then the UK. From there, the list gets very interesting: India, Brazil, Phillipines, Russia, Australia, Malaysia, UAE.

Specific content that was accessed: mostly photos (about 80% of traffic was for photos).

So, I guess I'm going to aim at doing the following:

• More future-facing (HTML5) website. Most users can handle it
• More expansive design - I'll aim for 1280 wide but degrade nicely.
• Better mobile version - some people are looking from mobile, should accommodate them.
• More photos! I haven't touched my camera since my most recent familial addition. I should take more photos.

There, I said it. I put it out there. The Leafs, they are my team. My jersey is a blue one. Every year, I hold on to the faint glimmer of hope that my team will make it into the playoffs. Not that they'll win; just that they'll get into the playoffs. That's life as a Leafs fan.

However, they're not my actual favourite team. Like most everyone else in the Leafs nation, I am mildly ashamed to say "I'm a Leafs fan," especially during playoffs. Most of the time, I seriously dislike how they're coached, managed and dealt with. Ron Wilson and Brian Burke are two of my least favourite hockey personages. Overall, my fandom is proximal and is also a result of marriage; I was a Leafs fan before I got married, but my wife's family is a Leafs Family. I felt capitalization and boldness were both required there.

There are two other teams that I cheer for. My proximal fandom extends to Vancouver Canucks, as Vancouver's the only other place I've lived. The Canucks have some of my favourite players, including my favourite line in hockey: Sedin, Sedin, and any other guy. I'm also a big Luongo fan, mostly because he always looks so surprised that he's a hockey player during interviews. The second team is probably not a surprise if you have read the title of this post: it's San Jose. Thornton, Marleau and Setoguchi are amazing to watch, and Niemi does everything he can to keep pucks out of his net. Moreover, San Jose is a tech town, supported by tech companies; what's not to love?

This series is probably the pinnacle of the playoffs for me; I don't really care about the other matchup. I don't like how Boston plays (booooooooring), and Tampa Bay just seems like they shouldn't have a team. It's all about the Western Conference Final, and if the first two periods of this game mean anything, then it's going to be an exciting matchup.

I do remember taking a picture similar a while back. While it was similar, you are right that it might not have been the same one. Sorry about that. I'll try to dig up my picture for conformation.

Five minutes later, I received this:

I have found the picture on my old computer. While it is extremely similar, there are not any trees at the bottom and there are less clouds.

I do apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused, but accidents do occur sometimes.

Interesting way things turned out.

For all you crazy kids out there, I have one small piece of advice: it is better to hold your tongue and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. When you think you have found copyright infringement on things that you own, double check to make sure that the person in question has actually infringed on your intellectual property before accusing them of thieving and lying. It is good to check your facts so you don't end up looking truly foolish.

And Mr. Birchett, if you are reading this, there are no hard feelings on my end of things.

I believe we have been in contact before. My picture, "Sunny Skies" is still up on your website. I would appreciate this being taken down, or at least some credit given. The reason I am ticked off about this is because that everyone on your comments page thinks that you took it, when we both know that is a lie. If this is not taken down within the month, further action will be taken.

Thanks,
Trevor Birchett

There are a few things wrong with this email.

1. I took this picture. I still have the camera somewhere, and I definitely have the original. I'm anal about pictures - I never delete them.
2. I have never heard from Mr. Birchett before. Sounds scammy to me.
3. I hate vague threats about copyright infringement, especially when there's no infringement.

I hastily penned a response, and just as hastily deleted it. It takes a bit of effort, but it doesn't hurt anyone to be polite, right? Here is my response:

Hello Mr Birchett,

We have not been in contact before; this is the first I've heard from you.

Unfortunately, I think there is some kind of confusion. While you may have a similar picture, Sunny Skies is one of mine; I still have the original and the camera that it was taken on, and the memory card that it was originally written to. I take false allegations about copyright infringement very seriously, and I do not appreciate being called a liar.

If you wish to pursue this matter further, please note that I will be making all contact between us public on my blog. I will take further contact to mean that you agree to my publishing of emails, letters, or any other form of communication.

Sincerely,

Andrew Phoenix

I hope that stays within the bounds of civility. I was pretty angry when first reading; getting a take down notice regarding a photo that I took is aggravating, and it is even more so because this is one of my most pirated photos. It is used without attribution a lot - TinEye highlights just how much.

I guess it is time to wait and see what happens.

Yes, Google Analytics can be fairly specific...

It's not a particularly difficult concept, and Imgur is doing the heavy lifting for us, but it was fun to work on. I mostly helped with planning (mostly over the phone) and also contributed the logo.

Social Networking. That's one of those buzzwords that I almost cringe when I hear.

There is a gap in Social Networking, and it's right in the middle. When you fall through it, you start to think of Facebook as an end point instead of a starting point. You think Twitter is actually a place to hang out with your friends. You think that Myspace... well, unless you think that Myspace is garbage, you're probably not thinking, and we'll leave that one alone.

The gap in Social Networking is where all the people who don't get it are hanging out. They're the people who keep sending you Farmville invitations and wonder why you're not jumping all over their need for irrigation. For them, the games are a way of hanging out with their friends online. A need to connect like this will prompt people to set their status to something like "nothing to report" which makes everyone else wonder why you'd actually make a status update like that. Why continue updating, when you've admitted that there's nothing left to say?

I'm not going to wax poetic on the transcendental need to shout out that we exist, or by the ennui of hanging out in a virtual world. But what is Social Networking actually for? It's actually pretty simple: Social Networking, in most cases, is just a synonym for Marketing. For most intents and purposes, Social Networking is just a tool to shout out I Exist! But it's no substitute for getting outside and actually talking to your friends (he says in his blog post).

I'm not saying that social sites are bad. I'll admit that I'm not a big fan of TheMyFace, but I use Twitter pretty extensively. So I'm a fan of social networking, but I also hate social networking.

And that's about when I lost steam with my rant on Social Networking. You can still find me on TheMyFace if you look hard, but it's better to find me on the TweetMaker: @andrewphoenix

Kid1 has started to display her proclivity for science. Her favourite activity of an evening is to figure out, set up, hypothesize about and complete a science experiment. For example, the other day, we set out two little basins of water with food colouring in them, then put a paper towel between them to show how capillary action works. We did the same with a piece of standard white paper, after trying to guess if standard paper would go faster or slower than paper towel. That experiment is still going; it is making some fantastic blue / purple / red art in excruciatingly slow fashion.

Kid2 is a baby and does standard baby stuff. It's hard to drum up a whole paragraph about her.

Kid1 is also deeply into fantasy books right now. We have completely The Hobbit and have started The Lord of the Rings, both of which she loves. My wife just finished reading the first Harry Potter book to her; witches, wizards, ents and elves, orcs and hobbits and magic! There's never enough to satisfy. I read LOTR for 45 minutes out loud tonight (including the songs, which she tries to get me to sing) and she was begging for more when I was done. Oh, and just the other day, she came home and very seriously said, "Dad. Some time soon, can we watch Star Wars together?"

Being a Geek Dad is amazing.