Business Accounts: Checking, Savings & Payment Processing

Estate Planning Services | Protect Your Loved Ones Today | Legal Karma | PSECU

Support: Routing Number, Account Number & FAQs - PSECU

Financial & Payment Calculator Tools - PSECU

Privacy

Mortgages: Rates, Calculators, Applications & More - PSECU

Medicare - PSECU

Understanding Overdraft Services | PSECU

Achieve More with Exclusive Member Benefits | PSECU

Making An Impact Through Community Support | PSECU

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

July 2025

June 2025

Pennsylvania State Employees Credit Union

	Title / URL	Issues
	Business Accounts: Checking, Savings & Payment Processingwww.psecu.com/banking/businesses	23
	Estate Planning Services \| Protect Your Loved Ones Today \| Legal Karma \| PSECUwww.psecu.com/estate-planning	21
	Support: Routing Number, Account Number & FAQs - PSECUwww.psecu.com/support	18
	Financial & Payment Calculator Tools - PSECUwww.psecu.com/calculators	18
	Privacywww.psecu.com/privacy	14
	Mortgages: Rates, Calculators, Applications & More - PSECUwww.psecu.com/loans/mortgages	11
	Medicare - PSECUwww.psecu.com/medicare	11
	Understanding Overdraft Services \| PSECUwww.psecu.com/overdraft	11
	Achieve More with Exclusive Member Benefits \| PSECUwww.psecu.com/join	10
	Making An Impact Through Community Support \| PSECUwww.psecu.com/community	10

Ensure links explain they open in a new tab

Pennsylvania State Employees Credit Union

Where this issue has occurred