Support for Drupal 7 is ending on 5 January 2025—it’s time to migrate to Drupal 10! Learn about the many benefits of Drupal 10 and find migration tools in our resource center.When users navigate to the modules install page (and possibly elsewhere), they click links that take off of their local Drupal installation (where we tell them "You can find modules and themes on drupal.org").
Solution discussed in usability wrap-up session:
Open drupal.org in a new window.
Comments
Comment #1
pjcdawkins CreditAttribution: pjcdawkins commentedAnother more ambitious (although possibly not very beneficial) option would be to integrate drupal.org in Drupal, so it's more like Wordpress's built-in plugin search. Then "You can find modules and themes on drupal.org" would be completely unnecessary.
Comment #2
dcmistry CreditAttribution: dcmistry commentedThat would be awesome, if that happens. But seems like too ambitious :)
Comment #3
Bojhan CreditAttribution: Bojhan commentedRegarding the ambitious part, we tackle that in other issues. This issue is truely navigating to Drupal.org and not finding the way back. This can occur in many places, especially in help we link to handbooks.
Comment #4
anarcat CreditAttribution: anarcat commented@Bojhan - in which issue do we tackle the "search on Drupal.org" problem exactly? I couldn't find anything specific about this.
Comment #5
Dave ReidUsability testers don't know the basics of using a web browser and using back buttons? Or is there more to this? BTW it's frowned upon to automatically open new tabs for users.
Comment #6
Gábor HojtsyTo the "integrate drupal.org into Drupal" suggestion there is in fact a google summer of code project working on that: Module/Theme Browser in Core
Comment #7
gdemetI think users might not have been able to tell that they were leaving their CMS admin and going to an external site.
One possibility might be a little pop-up that briefly appears saying something to the effect of, "You are now leaving your site's administration area and going to an external site (drupal.org). Please use your browser's back button if you'd like to return".
Note that I'm not convinced that would be a good idea, as it might just end up confusing folks more, but it's one way to offer a little more messaging to the user.
Comment #8
Bojhan CreditAttribution: Bojhan commented@DaveReid Actually, after browsing for 2/3 minutes - it takes a hell lot of "browser back button" pushing to get back. But yhea, I am also unsure how fixable this is other than opening a new window.
Comment #9
rolfmeijer CreditAttribution: rolfmeijer commentedMaybe users are not (all) able to use their back-button, but is opening a new window a better solution? I’ve always been under the impression it is not (see for instance http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9605.html issue 9).
Comment #10
grendzy CreditAttribution: grendzy commentedAre we sure this isn't an artifact of the test environment? I'd like to think we can count on a user to remember the URL of their own website. But I can understand how a made-up test URL could be forgotten.
rolfmeijer: I was about to post the same link. Opening new windows is hostile to users.
Comment #11
Anonymous (not verified) CreditAttribution: Anonymous commentedDoes anyone know whether the opening new window thing being hostile to users still holds? I know it was true 15 years ago, but with the tabs and everything in modern browsers, it might have changed? I haven't seen any more recent studies.
Comment #12
tamanna-freelancer CreditAttribution: tamanna-freelancer commentedhaving a javascript pop up appear saying "are you sure you wnat to leave the site" the user will know he is leaving the site.
Comment #13
dcmistry CreditAttribution: dcmistry commentedFrom relatively recent post: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/07/01/should-links-open-in-new-wind...
"Bottom line:
It is important that users are placed in control of the user interface they are using. Since users expect the link to be opened in the same window, set your links to open in the same window. Don't force a new window upon users unless there's a very good reason to do so. For the latter purpose, consider opening links in new windows if the link provides assistance or help, if it may interrupt an ongoing process or it leads to a non-html-document. "
There are always exceptions to the rule. This looks like an exception. Having D.O. open in the same window does *interrupt* the ongoing process of installing/browsing a module.
Comment #15
RoloDMonkey CreditAttribution: RoloDMonkey at FFW commentedI would like to throw my support behind the idea of having this link open in a new tab. I think this is a very good case for an exception to the old UI rules, and users are much more used to this kind of behavior in 2016.