Harper Independent School District - Harper ISD School Board

Harper Independent School District - Accountability

Harper Independent School District - Public Notices Home

Harper Independent School District - Athletics Home

Harper Independent School District - ESSER III

Harper Independent School District - Publications, Handbooks, & Forms Home

First time visit: View without clicking anything

Harper Independent School District - Election Information

Harper Independent School District - Home

Harper Independent School District - Community

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

April 2025

March 2025

Harper ISD

Title / URL	Issues
Harper Independent School District - Harper ISD School Boardwww.harperisd.org/36166_3	83
Harper Independent School District - Accountabilitywww.harperisd.org/51813_2	36
Harper Independent School District - Public Notices Homewww.harperisd.org/36158_3	34
Harper Independent School District - Athletics Homewww.harperisd.org/51816_2	19
Harper Independent School District - ESSER IIIwww.harperisd.org/36164_3	15
Harper Independent School District - Publications, Handbooks, & Forms Homewww.harperisd.org/36159_3	12
First time visit: View without clicking anythingwww.harperisd.org/	11
Harper Independent School District - Election Informationwww.harperisd.org/36165_3	11
Harper Independent School District - Homewww.harperisd.org/	11
Harper Independent School District - Communitywww.harperisd.org/51862_2	9

Ensure links explain they open in a new tab

Harper ISD

Where this issue has occurred