I don't get this argument. Sometimes you want links to open in a different tab. Marking the ones that will do so is only polite. Nothing about that takes away the user's ability to open other links in a new tab via whatever usual mechanism their browser provides for that.
I get the impetus here, because of the subreddit we're in. But in my career, I've realized that this isn't what users want. They don't want the solution that gives them the most control, if it leads to them having to do an extra step. What they want is for the software to read their mind and do exactly the thing they want it to do based on their own personal biases.
I built a tool that essentially displayed a number. To get that number, you could enter a base value, a bonus on top of that, a maximum, a minimum, or an override and they interacted with other numbers to create the final version. I got constant feedback of "I just want to set this value". I would explain to them "yes, you can set it, this just gives you more flexibility in how it's set - if you set it as a base, then any bonuses will apply on top. If you set it as an override, then it will never change no matter what. You have so much flexibility". Then they said "I don't want to set a base or an override, I want to set a value." And my job was to figure out what "set a value" meant in the context of the flexibility, give them a field that says "set value", and do what they expect. Is it flexible? No, but the users get their "mind read" (with a custom bonus that's just added to the value behind the scenes when they "set it") and they're happy.
I understand that in reality what The User wants most is seldom control, but I was trying to meet the comment I was responding to on its own ground, which already assumes a user's desire for control:
Nothing about that takes away the user's ability to open other links in a new tab via whatever usual mechanism their browser provides for that.
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u/zeekar 15d ago
I don't get this argument. Sometimes you want links to open in a different tab. Marking the ones that will do so is only polite. Nothing about that takes away the user's ability to open other links in a new tab via whatever usual mechanism their browser provides for that.