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Re: New windows and protected resources

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From: Heather P. Westerlund
Date: Nov 9, 2017 9:09AM

Thank you for your responses. It sounds like we have some flexibility here, which is nice. Many users will want to open multiple resources, so opening in a new tab may be best for user experience overall.

As for alerting the user, I know the ideal method in favor is adding some text to the link (e.g. "Nursing Database (link opens in a new window)"). However, when there are literally hundreds of these links listed on a page, it seems so redundant and make it more difficult for sighted users to read the actual resource name, in my opinion. Are there recommended alternative methods that are just as effective but less visually more concise?

It looks like the icon with alt text method is still completely acceptable: https://webaim.org/techniques/hypertext/hypertext_links#new_window

Cheers,

Heather Westerlund
Associate Director for IT, Collections, and Innovation
Walden University Library

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Tim Harshbarger
Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2017 9:55 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] New windows and protected resources

This email came from an external source.


Heather,

From an accessibility perspective, I think doing either would be fine. From a general user perspective, you might want to look at the use cases. For example, is the user likely to want to return to the page where they launched the protected resource?

If the page includes a list of protected resources and users sometimes want to select multiple resources, it might make for a better user experience to open new resources in a new page--so the user can easily return to the list of resources to select another one.

However, if you do open a new tab or browser window, it probably would be a good idea to inform all users that will happen.

Thanks,
Tim
-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Heather P. Westerlund
Sent: Thursday, November 9, 2017 9:41 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] New windows and protected resources

Does anyone have any advice for this type of situation? Thank you,

Heather Westerlund
Associate Director for IT, Collections, and Innovation Walden University Library

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Heather P. Westerlund
Sent: Thursday, November 02, 2017 9:10 AM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: [WebAIM] New windows and protected resources

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Hi folks,

I'm new to the listserv; glad to be a new member.

I know best practice is to always open links in the same window, even for external sites. WCAG 2.0 makes an exception when users are on a secure site and opening an external link in the same window will disrupt the session. But what about the other way around? Libraries deal with this all over their websites because of the various protected resources we offer (i.e. databases).

So my question: If a user is on a website and they're clicking into a protected resource (requires login), is it better to open in the same window or a new tab? In this situation, using the back button doesn't work as expected (you have to double click quickly to get back to the website if it you just logged in) and it starts a new session if the user navigates back into to that same protected resource (the user doesn't haven't to log in again, but it starts a new session).

TIA!
Heather Westerlund
Associate Director for IT, Collections, and Innovation Walden University Library<http://library.waldenu.edu/>;

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