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external links & new windows

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From: Nathalie Sequeira
Date: Nov 8, 2010 3:21AM

Hello list,

I've been pondering this topic for a while now and have gotten nowhere
definite, which is why I'd like to ask for your opinions on the matter:

In the past, I had established a homogenous practice for links that went
thus:
- links to pages on the same website open in the same window/ tab
- links to pages on external websites open in new window/tab, the title
attribute containing the forewarning "opens in new window" along with
supplemental infos on the content awaiting the user behind the link,
when appropriate.

The "sighted" rationale behind this was, that users often spend some
time on linked external sites, surfing around there, but then may want
to return to the "main branch" of their reading.
For sighted users, this is achieved simply by closing the separate new
window - as compared to the nuisance of hitting back X times or
searching for the original page in the (possibly long!) back-dropdown
list. This was also appreciated as useful by the user base.
My assumption had been that similar would be true for blind users, and
all was well --
*until I was confronted with the fact that screen readers do not read
title-attributes consistently/reliably.*
Ooops!

To contain the "new window" warning in visible text may be OK in a list
of links, but it gets rather cumbersome with links in a text. And I
haven't seen any sites doing that in ways that would be perceivable to
screen reader users (css stylings for sighted people, yes: little arrows
or web-icons added in, different colors, etc.).

The alternative, not to link externally at all, does not feel right
either however - due to the aforementioned rationale concerning ease of
use.
Leaving the choice to the user would be viable IF people were widely
aware of the fact that e.g. mouse-users can choose to open links in new
tabs or not (is there a similar mechanism for screen reader users?), but
are they?

So what to do?
What practices do you adopt in dealing with external links? Do you use
new windows/tabs at all?
And if you do open in new windows/tabs, how do you go about forewarning
the user perceivably but at the same time unobrtrusively?

Thanks so much for any light you can cast upon this :)
Nathalie