The Politics of Pop-Ups, Pop-Up Blockers and the Pop-Up Error Message

Pop ups are dead- so what?

First of all, let me just get this out in the open: there is nothing wrong with pop-ups per say.

Next, let me qualify what I just said: Pop-ups are ineffective as an advertising tool and are not recommended on the web since pop-up blockers are ubiquitous. E.g. Every browser and search engine tool these days has a pop-up blocker: AOL pop-up blocker, Google Toolbar pop-up blocker, Yahoo Toolbar pop-up blocker, Firefox built in pop-up blocker, third party free pop-up blocker tools...etc.

Google Killed the Pop-Up

From the late 90's to the early 00's Google quietly used it's simple and easy to use design (read great user experience) to hijack the pop-up as a form of web advertising. If you remember every credible large and small website used pop-up windows for advertising and more. Google's text advertising (right column block short phrase with a link) wiped out the pop-up since the click through rates (CTR) for text based advertising (or contextual advertising) were higher: under .5% CTR for pop-ups to 2-3% CTR for text ads.

Back to "There is Nothing Wrong with Pop-ups"

Pop-ups are not the problem. It is the forcing of them on your users without telling them, which also violates the permission-based marketing model. This issue is rarely understood I find due to the culture of pop-up hating. Yeah, I hate them too.

However, if it is appropriate to provide more detail such as help text, or larger images or diagrams- then by all means use a pop-up dialog! Just be sure that it is self-selected. In other words the user clicks to activate. Remember, pop-ups became hated because they forced themselves on users, got in their face, redirected their attention and cluttered up their train of thought.

The Pop-Up Blocker Error Message

Alas, with so many pop-up blockers (thank you to all the pop-up blocker tools) there is a need for a new kind of error message to help users orient to that which is supposed to be happening which isn't happening.

You've done it right? Clicked on a link, page, image and then...(nothing). What happened? Oh it's the pop-up blocker that ate it. So while you figured that out, the average user who is not savvy to browser features and functionality (such as pop-up blocking) will probably blink and miss the hidden "aha"...and then move on.