Comments on: Linking To Non-Web Documents http://www.slicedbreaddesign.com/blog/index.php/2009/02/guidelines-for-linking-to-non-web-documents/ an experience design blog Mon, 16 May 2011 06:16:55 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Marty DeAngelo http://www.slicedbreaddesign.com/blog/index.php/2009/02/guidelines-for-linking-to-non-web-documents/comment-page-1/#comment-68 Marty DeAngelo Fri, 29 May 2009 02:21:56 +0000 http://blog.slicedbreaddesign.com/?p=241#comment-68 We run into this on a daily basis - and we have found that opening these in a new window (via target="_blank", usually) is the best experience. However, in the case of PDFs particularly, you can only control this one of the three major aspects of the interaction; you CAN'T control whether the user has their PDF reader app to open in the browser or the application itself, nor can you control their browser settings in regard to opening or preventing new windows/tabs. Because of this, we found that the 'New Window' icon can be confusing since user settings can override that. And multiple icons were found to be confusing. However, having the file type icon was found to be essential in aiding the user in understanding what type of file they are accessing. I agree with your comment about forcing the dialog box - I think that it creates an extra step for the user that can be quite annoying. We run into this on a daily basis – and we have found that opening these in a new window (via target=”_blank”, usually) is the best experience. However, in the case of PDFs particularly, you can only control this one of the three major aspects of the interaction; you CAN’T control whether the user has their PDF reader app to open in the browser or the application itself, nor can you control their browser settings in regard to opening or preventing new windows/tabs.

Because of this, we found that the ‘New Window’ icon can be confusing since user settings can override that. And multiple icons were found to be confusing. However, having the file type icon was found to be essential in aiding the user in understanding what type of file they are accessing.

I agree with your comment about forcing the dialog box – I think that it creates an extra step for the user that can be quite annoying.

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