[Athen] Website accessibility

[Katherine Deibel]

Strictly WCAG, you need to provide an indication of this unexpected behavior as it creates a change of context for the user. Opening in a new link can be quite surprising to some users and cause some cognitive confusion, especially if not noticed when it happens. Accessibility is not only about screen reader users. Unexpected popups or new tabs has been a common source of irritation in my work with students and patrons with various cognitive disabilities. WCAG unfortunately does not do much (if anything) for cognitive supports, and many accessibility experts, myself included, highly recommend avoiding this whenever possible. Even providing an indication can be tricky. Many people use an icon but that icon is not universally understood.

Frankly, I would pushback hard on the marketing claim and inquire why opening in a new tab is a best practice? In general, user experience studies<https://www.nngroup.com/articles/new-browser-windows-and-tabs/> find that users get greatly annoyed when this happens.

However, you can do this accessibly. The following is my recommendation that goes beyond WCAG to support various cognitive issues as well:


  1.  The following must be done absolutely consistently.
  2.  Every link should have an accessible indication that the link opens in a new tab.
  3.  If the indication is text, it needs to be visible to all users.
  4.  If the indication is an icon, that icon requires either:
     *   An accessible tooltip (not just using the title attribute)
     *   A legend explaining the icon’s meaning on every page




Katherine “Kate” Deibel, PhD
Library Accessibility Specialist
Twitter: https://twitter.com/metageeky
GitHub: https://github.com/metageeky

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> On Behalf Of Robert Spangler
Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2022 12:20 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Website accessibility

I'm curious to know why the practice of opening in a new link goes against accessibility recommendations.  As a screen reader user, the only issue I see is not being informed that the page opened in a new tab, and so I might think nothing has happened if a tab opened in the background and I wasn't informed.  Perhaps putting in parentheses "(opens in new tab)" somewhere, such as after the link text, would be a good compromise.

Thanks,
Robert


On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 10:55 AM Emily Singer Lucio <eslucio at umd.edu<mailto:eslucio at umd.edu>> wrote:
Hi all.

I have a question.

There is some disagreement about whether links should open in a new tab (a marketing best practice) or not (an accessibility recommendation) -- do you know if there is any happy compromise there?

Respectfully,

Emily Singer Lucio She/Her/Hers
ADA/504 Coordinator
University of Maryland, College Park
Office of Diversity & Inclusion
3123 Susquehanna Hall
4200 Leigh Road
College Park MD 20742
Tel:301 405-2841 | Fax:301 314-9992
Email: eslucio at umd.edu<mailto:eslucio at umd.edu>
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Robert Spangler
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