I find it very confusing. The policy we use for our corporate website is to open a new browser window for external links with target="top" title="This link will open in a new browser window."
Who says opening a new window is bad practice. Especially if it is an outside link. I've been searching the web for information on this and finding nothing. My understanding of web accessibility and 508 is to make everything as clear a possible. If there is a guideline out there that states "Thou shall not open new window" please post the link. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of tee Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2005 9:13 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [WSG] another 'open new window' dilemma Hi accessible care takers, I know open new window even for external site is no good and have put it in practise for most sites I have done, however I am kind of stuck on a site that has over 100 links to external sites. My client, understands no accessible issues however she was willing to take many of my suggestions, except the NO 'open new window' to external sites. Her argument is valid and justifiable, that she is afraid her audience (marketing decision markers, art directors and IT managers, ad firm account managers etc) will get lost if there isn't new window open for external site. I tried to convince her that her audience probably are more advanced internet users than most grandpa/grandmom audience my other clients have. She doesn't buy it and I haven't give up :) Visited Accessify, sitepoint as well as WSG archives to look for perfect solution; there seems none. It can also be quite a pain adding js code just to make the link works. My temporarily solution is to have the 'title="right click for new window' in the <a href> tag, and also provides an open new window icon next to the link text, however I am afraid this may actually creates confusion to her audience. So I created another icon that indicates 'right click to open new window' - it seems a bit over kill. I still think the 'title="right click for new window' is the best approach, but I notice the indication takes more than 3 seconds to show. Some people click faster than 3 seconds. Can you tell the message I try to convey at the first glance of the icon? Does it too fancy, too confusing? please see the first two links. http://clients.lotusseeds.com/news/june05_nikkeibussiness.html thanks! tee ****************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help ****************************************************** ****************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help ******************************************************
