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Link target opens new window without warning Accessibility Checkpoint

Description

Avoid specifying a new window as the target of a link with target=_blank.

Help

Displaying new windows without warning can be very confusing to non-sighted and mobile users. Some screen readers and mobile devices give very little indication a new tab or window has opened. If you cannot avoid displaying a new window, insert an “opens in a new window” warning into the link text or add the warning to the link using a title attribute or aria-describedby attribute.

Applicable standards

Change history

  • 6.52 Apr 2024 Improved detection.
  • 6.49 May 2023 Improved detection.
  • 5.36 Jan 2020 Improved detection. Changed rule ID from AccWcag1-10.1.2 to AccHtmlLinkTargetNew.
  • 5.23 Oct 2016 Don’t trigger on ARIA hidden associations.
  • 5.9 Jun 2015 Don’t trigger on mailto links.
  • 5.4 Feb 2014 Fixed false positive.
  • 5.0 Oct 2012 Now also triggers for target="_new".
  • 4.4 Aug 2011 Fixed false negative: popup instructions outside link text insufficient (because they’re not read out when listing links on a page).
  • 3.0 Dec 2008 Now triggers WCAG2 issue.
  • 1.0 Feb 2007 Added.

This page describes a web site issue detected in HTML documents by SortSite Desktop and OnDemand Suite.

Rule ID: AccHtmlLinkTargetNew