Like every other person who has ever surfed the web, I view pop-ups with total disdain. Mostly I ignore them…but given the opportunity, if I had all of them gathered in one place, and my forefinger on the right trigger (Firefox?), my disdain would be positively genodical.

This pop-up racism, I admit, is not entirely rational. On occasion, there are rational reasons to depart from the design you've committed to, and require the user to deal with a whole new z-layer of design.

Here's one example at harpers.org. It's basically a "click to enlarge" interaction (scroll down the central column to the first picture, then click TWICE), with a perfect implementation.

Notice that 1) the pop-up appears in reaction to user desire, where the user clicks, and 2) it can be un-popped with the same click. Sweet…I think I'll invite a pop-up to dinner…and even let one of them marry one of my daughters.

Tags: gripes · usabilityNo Comments