Any breaking of user-specified window management is bad. Producing pop-ups or new windows/tabs when not requested, or preventing them. The key isn't what the site is doing, it is going against the user's expectations and/or express preferences.
Producing pop-ups or new windows/tabs when not requested, or preventing them.
Agreed - the common pattern I'm referring to is to have a button that the user clicks on to open a modal window.
This is ridiculously frustrating - it obscures the rest of the page, preventing me from navigating around that page or to other parts of the site without manually opening a new tab.
Occasionally those modal windows let me drag them around slowly with my mouse, but that's really only marginally better. I don't want every website to try and invent its own windowing manager, which is what many try to do.
Comments
Any breaking of user-specified window management is bad. Producing pop-ups or new windows/tabs when not requested, or preventing them. The key isn't what the site is doing, it is going against the user's expectations and/or express preferences.
Agreed - the common pattern I'm referring to is to have a button that the user clicks on to open a modal window.
This is ridiculously frustrating - it obscures the rest of the page, preventing me from navigating around that page or to other parts of the site without manually opening a new tab.
Occasionally those modal windows let me drag them around slowly with my mouse, but that's really only marginally better. I don't want every website to try and invent its own windowing manager, which is what many try to do.