Creighton University Libraries

Creighton Law Admissions

Graduate School | Creighton University | Omaha, NE

College of Arts and Sciences | Creighton University

Office of the Registrar

Graduate School Admissions

Heider College of Business | Creighton University

How Do I Transfer to Creighton University?

First time visit: View without clicking anything

School of Medicine | Creighton University | Omaha, NE

Avoid opening links in a new tab or window. Where you must do this, include an explanation
in the text of the link.

## Why this matters

Opening links in a new tab or window breaks the back button and can be disorientating for 
novice web users, and the visually impaired. Generally you should avoid opening links in a
new tab or window, but if you have to, you should include text explaining that this will happen.

## How to fix

An explanation must be clear in the accessible text for the link. For example:

```html
<a href="products.html" target="_blank">
    Products (opens in new window)
</a>
```

Or, for an image inside a link:

```html
<a href="products.html" target="_blank">
    <img src="products.jpg" alt="Products (opens in new window)">
</a>
```

Rather than updating all of your links manually to do this, you can add a simple CSS
selector, such as:

```css
a[target="_blank"]:after {
    content: " (opens in new window)";
}
```

Note that doing this with an icon, is not sufficient to pass this check. The text must be
readable by screen readers.

Alternatively you can override the link text for accessible technologies (like screenreaders),
so that the appearance of the link does not change. For example:

```html
<a href="products.html" target="_blank" aria-label="Products (opens in new window)">
    Products
</a>
```

Note that if you do this, the `aria-label` will replace the text content of the link completely,
so it must still make sense in isolation.

## Terminology

Although it is common to say "opens in new window", almost all browsers now use tabs, and
so this terminology is potentially confusing. You may prefer: "opens in new tab".

## Methodology

1. Silktide considers all links on a page with a `target` attribute of `_blank`.
2. For each link, Silktide considers the screen-readable text of the link, which includes:
   * The text content of the link
   * Any `alt` text inside any images inside the link
   * Any `aria-label` or `aria-labelled-by` text
   * The `content` of the pseudo-elements `:before` and `:after`
3. This text is analysed for the presence of common text, including "opens new tab"
    and "opens new window". If the text is not found, the link fails the test.

## Further reading

Generally best practice is to avoid opening links in a new tab or window.  

The W3C provides detailed guidance on 
[when opening a link in a new window may be appropriate](https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/G200.html).

link-text-explains-open-in-new-window

August 2025

July 2025

Creighton University

Title / URL	Issues
Creighton University Librarieswww.creighton.edu/academics/libraries	38
Creighton Law Admissionswww.creighton.edu/law/future-students/apply	37
Graduate School \| Creighton University \| Omaha, NEwww.creighton.edu/graduate	27
College of Arts and Sciences \| Creighton Universitywww.creighton.edu/arts-sciences	25
Office of the Registrarwww.creighton.edu/registrar	24
Graduate School Admissionswww.creighton.edu/graduate/admissions	23
Heider College of Business \| Creighton Universitywww.creighton.edu/business	23
How Do I Transfer to Creighton University?www.creighton.edu/admission-aid/transfer	23
First time visit: View without clicking anythingwww.creighton.edu/	22
School of Medicine \| Creighton University \| Omaha, NEwww.creighton.edu/medicine	22

Ensure links explain they open in a new tab

Creighton University

Where this issue has occurred