[paperpunk]

We had a spirited debate about this in our application at work recently. Some devs feel (strongly) that having no option to open links on the same page is a user-hostile choice. Other devs feels (also strongly) that users most likely want to open a link in a new tab so that’s what should happen.

We never reached an agreement but someone did make a claim, that I was unable to verify, that modern users don’t use the back button and therefore relying on it to allow users to find their way back is unacceptable. I wonder if anyone else has heard that (I suspect the HN crowd knows about the back button though ;))

[breeny592]

Yeah I definitely sit strongly in the former camp (that is, navigation should be in the same tab for anything that is your content).

When linking externally or to something that isn't yours, I feel it makes sense to go to a new tab then.

> someone did make a claim, that I was unable to verify, that modern users don’t use the back button and therefore relying on it to allow users to find their way back is unacceptable

I think this person is projecting their own experiences. Would be interesting to see the impact that mobile browser experiences have brought to these interactions, but for instance Android has a literal OS wide back button. I think that claim is a pretty far stretch.

[leighfuu]

Someone most definitely made that up.

Sadly I've wasted many hours of life in focus groups watching the mob navigate. Back buttons are *used prodigiously, and woe betide anyone who breaks a gesture swipe back - that one gets scowls.

[r2b2]

I typically use `⌘ [` and `⌘ ]` for back and forward navigation. It's rarely in conflict with other hotkey combos, unlike `⌘ →` and `⌘ ←`.