You know the sites: the kind where clicking on a link opens a new window (or a tab, depending upon your browser). The back button doesn’t take you back to the previous page because a new window opened instead. By the time you are finished with the site, you have several windows open that you must now close before carrying on with whatever you were doing. How annoying.

Why is Opening Links in New Windows an Accessibility Sin?

Besides being a frustrating user experience, suddenly opening new windows can disorientate or be missed completely by some people.

I recently heard a senior new to the internet claim a link was not working because nothing happened when he had repeatedly clicked on it. He had not noticed that the link opened in a new window and that he now had 15-20 windows open.

For those with limited hand function or vision impairments, dealing with new windows opening unexpectedly require extra effort to close and to navigate back to the original window.

How to Absolve this Sin?

Allow your blog readers to control whether or not a link opens in a new window. You achieve this by not setting the target of the link.

In WordPress, this means choosing the “not set” option for Target when inserting or editing a link.

For those familiar with HTML, this means not using the target attribute.

When opening the link in a new window is necessary, then indicate in the text link that a new window will open; for example:

<a href="checklist.html" target="_blank">accessibility checklist (opens new window)</a>

Have questions? Ask in the comment section below.

For more tips and tricks in creating accessible blogs and content, check out the Blog Accessibility Mastermind.

Last week I shared the benefits of providing a transcript in addition to captioning a video (an accessibility must!). But, short of transcribing each word yourself, how do acquire the transcript? Here are a few suggestions: Laura Fitton recommends SpeakerText – a fast and affordable transcription service.  Weston Norton suggests CastingWords – the budget package…

Captioning videos is an accessibility must for individuals who are Deaf or hard of hearing. Captions also benefit those who do not understand the speaker’s accent (we all have accents!), and those who do not have sound available while watching the video.

Providing a transcript – a textual version of the video – further increases accessibility of the content. People who are deaf-blind can access the content by using a refreshable (dynamic) Braille display, which converts text into Braille.

Like captions, providing transcripts also has auxiliary benefits:

• The text is then searchable by search engines.
• People can double-check a point without watching the video again.
• Some people prefer reading rather than watching a video; others prefer both. 
• Content is still available when the video is not; for example, a Flash video can not be viewed on a iPad.

What other benefits are there to providing video transcripts? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Every industry, business and organization has them. They are well understood and simplify communication “In-house”. Yet, for outsiders, they cause confusion. They are acronyms: the alphabet soup that insiders understand but exclude outsiders.

Why is Not Expanding Acronyms an Accessibility Sin?

Consider this sentence:

“The ADA is due for a major overhaul.”

In this sentence, what does ADA mean? Is the acronym referring to the American Dental Association, the American Diabetes Association, the Americans with Disabilities Act or something else? Without knowing what ADA stands for, this sentence is rather vague and meaningless.

Although this example may be considered staged to demonstrate a point, coming across unfamiliar acronyms (and jargon) in blog posts can be jarring and confusing. Readers may not completely understand the remaining content and may feel excluded. Content filled with too many unexplained acronyms may frustrated readers, causing them to click away.

How to Absolve this Sin?

The solution is easy and takes only a few moments: expand all acronyms (or abbreviations) the first time they are used in a post, for example:

“The internationally recognized cornerstone for web accessibility is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0 and now the WCAG 2.0. Many guidelines, policies and legal requirements are based on the WCAG.”

A key point to remember is that, even though you may have expanded the acronym in previous posts, readers may enter your blog on any post, making it necessary to expand every acronym the first time it is used in each post.

Have questions? Ask in the comment section below.

For more tips and tricks in creating accessible blogs and content, check out the Blog Accessibility Mastermind.