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Re: Reason For Links Opening In New Window

for

From: John Foliot - Stanford Online Accessibility Program
Date: Jan 8, 2007 10:20AM

Andrew Kirkpatrick wrote:
>
> When a new window in a browser opens up assistive technologies do know
> about it and many notify the user appropriately. These same tools allow
> users to get a list of all open windows.
<snip>
>
> I'm not entirely clear on the real issues that remain -- I see the
> ones that John mentions in his page, but am not convinced. What are
> the other reasons why new windows are still "deemed harmful"?
>
> AWK

Back in the day, we used to warn about user-agents that did not support
JavaScript and/or multiple instances of browser windows. In those days it
was due to older, less mature user-agents, lower CPU and RAM issues, dial-up
14.4 modems, etc. Today, many argue that these concerns are no longer
issues.

However, there is still the "front-end" of these technologies: new, smaller,
hardware and emerging alternative user-agents that may not support concepts
such as multiple windows. Just this week alone there is much "buzz" about
newly emerging tools such as the rumored Apple Television set-top
(web-enabled) at MacWorld, and new handhelds that leave the current
generation of Sidekicks, Blackberrys, et. al. in the dust. The new Nintendo
Wii game console ships with a version of Opera embedded into it's innards
(I've not actually seen it), which is an interesting mixing of technologies.


To me, this type of convergence, especially into smaller and smaller
devices, may mean that many types of web-usage will evolve beyond the
"traditional" desktop/tower or laptop usage we see today. The old adage of
it not "looking" (or reacting) the same for everyone remains, whether it is
pixel-perfect layout design, or a presumed ability for *all* user-agents to
support concepts such as multiple windows and client-side scripting. In
each and every case, the need for graceful degradation remains as true today
as it did 'way back in the 90's, especially when we start talking about
universal accessibility. Andrew mentions that today's adaptive technology
tools (at least screen readers) have evolved to deal with multiple windows,
but by now we all know that web accessibility is more than just "web pages
for blind people", right?

Just my $0.02

JF