Removing Browser Navigation Items

Good idea or not?

[wibble]

Does anyone know of any usability articles that discuss whether it is a good thing or a bad thing to remove browser navigation (home, back etc.) when opening a pop-up.

I've always thought of this a bad idea and personally always left the user in charge of how they set up their browser window.

The problem being is that I have just been in a meeting discussing a new interface and members of management have requested that the browser nav been removed from the new interface.

I'm sure I've seen usability articles and studies in the past which support my belief. But can I remember where they were or the major points.

Any help appreciated.

[marek]

I can't remember a particular article, but you can check out Jacob Nielsen's Alertbox at Usit.com. On the other hand, every project is different and you should consider your own user testing.

In any case, if you remove the browser navigation elements from a popup window, be sure that the popup never hide the whole original window and include well visible "Close this window" link or button. Also, you should not includ any other links in the popup that would open in the same window (because of missing back button).

[txbakers]

As the previous poster said, it really depends on the applications.

I use informative popups in my application. If a user needs help with a field, there is a prompt icon which opens a small window with further information. That window doesn't need any buttons. "Here is your info, now close me" is all it needs to do.

However, I have other popups that do a little more. Certain database reports, for example, are usually printed, so I include the toolbar, but not the address bar. The user doesn't need to know the direct address of that report, nor do they need to type in another one.

It's all dependent on the situation.

[tedster]

Here is one of my pet peeves as a user -- the informational (user chosen) pop-up with no status bar.

If I am interested in the information, then I will wait for a relatively long, slow download, IF I know it's happening. But how am I to know whether there is no server response at all or some other non-standard situation or some impossibly slow connection problem?

Hey, no one's server works perfectly all the time and neither does anyone's Internet access. So my strong opinion is that user chosen pop-ups always need a status bar.

On Opera I can always choose to "duplicate" the window -- and then I get a second version of the document in a window with full features. However, most visitor's don't have that easy option.

[txbakers]

On Opera I can always choose to "duplicate" the window -- and then I get a second version of the document in a window with full features. However, most visitor's don't have that easy option.

On IE it's easy also: Control-N will open up a new instance of the popup with complete navigation items.

[wibble]

Thanks for the comments and the really good point about displaying the status bar at least.