Why let someone know when a link opens a new window?

Find out how to warn people ahead of time and why it’s so important

Photo by Matthew Henry from Burst

You’ve probably seen this bit of HTML before:

<a href="https://mysite.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">My site</a>

Specifically, check out the target="_blank" attribute. This is what allows a link to open a new tab or window automatically. Whether or not you should even use this attribute is debatable, but this is out of scope of this post.

The information being shared here is an approach I’ve been using to help inform people who rely on assistive technology, such as a screen reader, when a link opens a new window.

Why?

It’s a valid question. Why inform someone that activating a link might open a new window or a third-party site?

Well, without this context, people might believe they’re following an internal site link in the same browser window. Applying target="_blank" to open a new tab would cause extra work for sighted keyboard-only users and screen reader users. If they’re unprepared to move away from the current site, they’d need to switch back to the previous tab or window.

Give power to the user—let them decide how they’d like to…