Did you know that opening links in a new window may confuse your users?

While it is a common practice to open external links in a new window it should never be done without first notifying the user.  There are many ways to notify your users. You can add a notice such as (opens in a new window) to the link text or the title attribute. CSS may be used to show a notice when the link is active or a small icon may be used inside the anchor tag with the alternate text set to “opens in a new window”. If your website has a lot of links the WP ADA Compliance Plugin will add the notice for you. Simply install and activate the plugin and your done.

Additional Resources:

  1. W3.org – Giving users advanced warning when opening a new window
  2. W3.org – Opening new windows and tabs from a link only when necessary
  3. WebAim – Links and Hypertext

 

Similar Posts

  • |

    Department of Justice (DOJ) Web Accessibility Mandates

    Bywpadauser

    The Department of Justice (DOJ) mandates that state and local government (Title II) websites and mobile apps comply with WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards, with deadlines of April 24, 2027, for populations of 50,000+ and April 26, 2028, for smaller entities. This covers all digital services, including forms, portals, and third-party tools. The rule covers…

  • Web Accessibility Training

    Bywpadauser

    In this web accessibility training course you will learn web and digital accessibility skills for web, documents, and mobile content. This self-paced course cover the most important aspects of Web Accessibility and will teach you how people with disabilities use the web and different types of assistive technologies. Course Length Approximately 8 hours of reading…

  • How to Build an Inclusive Company Website

    Bywpadauser

    Image via Pexels A website is a crucial element of any successful company. Your website should introduce potential customers to your business and show them what you have to offer. Unfortunately, many websites are not inclusive and don’t necessarily cater to people with disabilities. If you want to draw in a wider audience and make…

  • a11y stands for ACCESSIBILITY

    Bywpadauser

    The A11Y Project is a community-driven effort to make digital accessibility easier. The A11Y Project website provides: Fundamentals and principles behind accessible design A checklist based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) A community of designers who are interested in improving Web Content Accessibility Many resources, including: tools, books, videos, podcasts, newsletters, even professional help!…

  • Common HTML Button Accessibility Problems

    Bywpadauser

    HTML button accessibility is a common problem on websites. Keyboard users routinely use the spacebar and the enter key to activate an html button control. When it doesn’t work, blind users can quickly become disoriented. Luckily this problem can be easily resolved by placing a simple JS script file on your website. It does require…

  • Did you know that HTML code validation is an important part of ensuring ADA compliance of your website?

    Bywpadauser

    All web pages must have complete start and end tags, be nested according to their specifications, not contain duplicate attributes, and IDs must be unique. To ensure ADA compliance, use our free html validation plugin to identify and correct validation errors in your pages. The pro extension may be used to correct many of HTML…

Cart Accessibility Tools
hide