First-user Journey · review

First-user Review — Angela's Website

Testing angela27.homelinked.tech like a first-time user, using the HSIMC First-user Journey structure. Overall the site is polished and clear — I found one real navigation blocker.

Reviewer: Nicholas Brandon YangTarget: angela272026-07-20Level reached: USABLE_SUCCESS

Daily Card · 每日三句话

Today I Made: A first-user review of Angela's website (angela27.homelinked.tech). Today I Tried: I opened her site and clicked through it like a first-time user. Her design is clear and polished — but every link opens in a new browser tab. After a few clicks I had many tabs open, the Back button no longer returned me to the previous page, and I lost my place in the journey. Next Step: Suggest Angela make her in-site links open in the same tab (remove target="_blank"), keeping new tabs only for truly external sites.

The main problem · found blocker

Links open in a new tab and break "Back"

On a first-user journey you move forward and back a lot — open a page, look, return, try the next thing. Angela's links use target="_blank", so each click opens a new tab instead of navigating in place. Two things go wrong for a first-time user:

The browser Back button stops working — a new tab has no "previous page," so the user can't return the way they expect.
Tabs pile up. After a few clicks the person has many tabs open and loses track of where they were — the journey feels broken even though each page is fine.

Evidence (measured in her live HTML): links opening in a new tab — /homepage/: 1 of 1 · /services/: 1 of 1 · /handoff/: 2 of 4. So the site's main navigation links force new tabs.

Which checklist point it fails: it hurts Open → Understand → Try flow and point 6 (“user knows what to do if stuck”) — when Back doesn't work, a first-timer is stuck.

First-user Journey Checklist · applied to Angela's site

#	Checkpoint	Status
1	Open — page opens on phone	PASS
2	Understand — clear what it is within a minute	PASS · polished design
3	Try — user can find a demo or sample	HARD TO FIND
4	Test Buy — can find test page / Stripe Test Mode	NOT OBVIOUS
5	Receive — user can open sample delivery	NOT FOUND
6	Help — user knows what to do if stuck	BLOCKED — Back fails (new tabs)
7	Next — next action written clearly	PARTIAL
8	Safety — no secrets / private data / false claims	PASS

Note: items 3–5 are marked cautiously — some of Angela's content sits inside an embedded visual design, so a first-time user (and I) couldn't easily find the demo, test buy, or sample delivery from the homepage. The clearest, verifiable blocker is the new-tab navigation (point 6).

Recommended fix (easy)

Same-tab navigation for in-site links

For links that go to her own pages, remove target="_blank" so they open in the same tab and Back works normally:

// before — forces a new tab
<a href="/services/" target="_blank">Services</a>

// after — same tab, Back works
<a href="/services/">Services</a>

Keep target="_blank" only for truly external sites (e.g. a Canva or YouTube link), and add rel="noopener" to those. Then a first-time user can move through the whole journey and always return with Back.

Verdict

Angela's site is visually strong and clear — this is a small, fixable navigation issue, not a redesign. Fixing the new-tab behaviour would move her journey from “each page is good” to “a first-time user can flow through it and never get lost.”