Designing Smart Pop-up Windows
By Bart Marable and Raymond Simmons
One of the most challenging issues facing Web designers is bringing fresh content to the attention of visitors without letting this new content become stale or distracting for repeat visitors. For instance, a company may want to announce a recent expansion to site visitors through an eye-catching pop-up window or banner, but it probably does not want returning visitors to have to read the same announcement again and again.
In an effort to solve this ongoing problem, we have developed a way to use JavaScript in combination with cookies to create smart pop-up windows. Smart pop-up windows can bring unread news to a new visitor's attention, but keep this information tucked away, out of the way of returning visitors who have already had an opportunity to review the window's contents.
JavaScript pop-up windows, which began appearing on the Web in mid 1996, are new browser windows that are opened through JavaScript instructions included in the HTML document. Most of the sites that employ pop-up windows do so in one of two ways. Some sites open a full-size window automatically as the user enters the site, a method that allows designers to control both the size and the features of the browser window in which the contents of the site will be displayed. Other sites use a smaller pop-up window that acts as a floating navigation tool above the main content browser window. Selecting items in the pop-up window then updates the contents in the main browser window as a type of navigational "remote control."
