Company Information - Luton Town Football Club

Retail - Luton Town Football Club

Ross says farewell to Luton Town - Luton Town Football Club

Key Dates | Championship 2024/25 - Luton Town Football Club

Club information - Luton Town Football Club

First time visit: View without clicking anything

Ticket News - Luton Town Football Club

Club News - Luton Town Football Club

Watch: First day back! 🏃‍♂️😮‍💨 1km test + Behind-the-Scenes! - Luton Town Football Club

Terms of Use - Luton Town Football Club

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

October 2024

September 2024

Luton Town FC

Title / URL	Issues
Company Information - Luton Town Football Clubwww.lutontown.co.uk/en/company-information	21
Retail - Luton Town Football Clubwww.lutontown.co.uk/en/news/category/retail	21
Ross says farewell to Luton Town - Luton Town Football Clubwww.lutontown.co.uk/en/news/ross-says-farewell-to-luton-town	21
Key Dates \| Championship 2024/25 - Luton Town Football Clubwww.lutontown.co.uk/en/news/key-dates-championship-202425	21
Club information - Luton Town Football Clubwww.lutontown.co.uk/en/club-information	21
First time visit: View without clicking anythingwww.lutontown.co.uk/en	21
Ticket News - Luton Town Football Clubwww.lutontown.co.uk/en/news/category/ticket-news	21
Club News - Luton Town Football Clubwww.lutontown.co.uk/en/news/category/club-news	21
Watch: First day back! 🏃‍♂️😮‍💨 1km test + Behind-the-Scenes! - Luton Town Football Clubwww.lutontown.co.uk/en/news/watch-first-day-back	21
Terms of Use - Luton Town Football Clubwww.lutontown.co.uk/en/terms-of-use	21

Ensure links explain they open in a new tab

Luton Town FC

Where this issue has occurred