I’m a firm believer in web standards. I think the current level of support, often heard on blogs, borders on zealousness sometimes, but standards set a baseline for quality in our industry and that can only be a good thing.

Bottom line: I like web standards ok?

But I still have an issue with some of the standards that, to me at least, seem to hinder the user experience as opposed to improve it.

A case in question being the use of target=”_blank” inside links. The latest trend suggests using this is bad for accessibility because it removes control from the user by forcing a new browser window to open.

But is it really a bad thing? I don’t think so. When I’m surfing a site and find a link to an external site, I often want to nip off there for a bit, have a poke around and come straight back to the original site. Using target=”_blank” for external links makes this a doddle.

If you don’t use it, you go through the arduous task of having to hit the back button about 10 times before you get back to the original site.

“But wait” I hear you cry, “you can just simply open the link in a new window yourself by holding down shift”. And that’s great, but the vast majority of people simply don’t know this function exists making it fairly irrelevant.

The case against target=”_blank” seems to be the slightly patronising argument that people will get too confused when a new browser window opens. But we’re supposed to accept the fact that they’ll be knowledgeable enough to force a new window to open for an external site by understanding the intricacies of the browser software. I don’t buy it I’m afraid.

The problem gets much worse when you deal with things like links to pdfs. In my experience people rarely hit the back button when a pdf has opened in a window, they almost always just close it down. And then they’re confused why their website has disappeared, and have to open the whole site again.

For the minute, I think I’m going to stick to using target=”_blank” but I’m prepared to change if anybody’s got a good enough argument.

So convince me!