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Wishy-washy

Right, well the first thing you’ll notice is that my website looks just a little bit different. That is, everything is missing. If there’s a good reason for it, I don’t know what it is. Lately, I feel like Bob and/or Doug in search of a topic (eh). Normally you just can’t shut me up, but now I really don’t have much on my mind, I suppose.

So I thought I’d stop blogging. Then I changed my mind. Then I stopped again. Then I tried a minimalist approach and removed everything. Now I don’t know what I’m doing with this thing.

Until I decide what to do next with this blog, please enjoy the lack of features on this page. I’d suggest visiting the archives or links, but I seem to have misplaced those.

Edit: the entire blog is now published with a prefab Blogger template. The links to other blogs are still missing. I’ll re-add those later.

Edit: More wishy-washiness. I’ve restored the old template. Now… someone tell me what to write about.

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BRB

I can’t post to this blog for a little bit, but feel free to browse the archives — click “bloggishness” on the left.

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A contentious issue in the blogging community is whether a hyperlink should open a new window or replace the current page. It’s a heated debate that’s rife with outrage and moral indignation on both sides of the issue.

A while back, I decided that links in this blog should spawn new browser windows. It’s something that I thought about carefully first before making it a habit. To me it’s a usability issue. I start with the assumption that the user wants to read my article. After all, if nobody wants to read my articles, then why do I have the site in the first place? (Hmm. If nobody responds to this, then maybe I should address that issue at a later date.)

Here’s the no-spawn scenario: User is in the middle of reading my article, and clicks a link in the middle of a sentence. My article (my entire site, in fact) is replaced by the new page. If the user does too much surfing in the new site, it’s difficult or tedious to back out of it and return to the unfinished sentence. My no-spawn hyperlink is like a trap door for unsuspecting readers.

Here’s the spawn scenario: User is reading my article, clicks a link, and the new page opens in a window overtop of my site. In their detour from my ariticle, the user can click around in the new site. When they’re done, the user can close the new window and finish reading the article.

Some people feel that it’s enough that IE users can SHIFT-click (Mozilla users can CTRL-click) to spawn new windows, and that website designers shouldn’t force a new window. That’s fine for expert users who know that poorly-documented trick, but I would like to think that my readers don’t need to be experts just to browse my website. The web should be a novice-friendly place.

So… to conclude my ramble, unless your audience is comprised of highly technical types, not spawning windows makes browsing difficult for regular people.