Stop opening new tabs without cause
G200 is guidance, not a conformance route, and W3C says so on the technique's own page. It carries an explicit note that following it is not necessary to meet any particular success criterion, and W3C lists it as advisory at the Level AAA rule about changes happening on request. It has no test section at all, which is consistent with that status. What it advises is straightforward. Do not open a new window unless there is a reason, and where you do, tell people first. W3C's position is more balanced than the usual reading of it. Opening a new window is generally worse, and it can be the better choice where somebody would otherwise lose their place, such as a reference document opened from the middle of a form. Judgment rather than a rule.
How we find it in an audit
Our reviewers check whether new windows open at all, then ask what each one is for. Blanket target attributes across an article template are the pattern worth raising, because nothing about a news story needs a new tab. Where a new window genuinely serves the reader, we check the link says so before it happens, which is the separate advisory technique for warning people.
How affected users experience it
A new window changes what the Back button does, and for a screen reader user that discovery costs several steps of exploration. Fourteen tabs into a reading session, working out which one holds the article means listening to fourteen titles. People with cognitive disabilities lose the thread the same way. Somebody using magnification may not even see that the window changed, since their view covers a fraction of the screen.
Passes vs. fails
Passes
Links navigate in the same tab. The one exception, a size guide opened during checkout, opens a new window and says so in its link text.
Fails
Every link in the article template carries target="_blank", so ten minutes of reading leaves fourteen tabs and a Back button that does nothing.
How this gets tested
The W3C publishes test rules that define what a checker looks for here.
- Meta element has no refresh delayA tool can check this
- Meta element has no refresh delay (no exception)A tool can check this
The other techniques filed under this rule
16 guides on this site are filed under 3.2.5 Change on Request. W3C lists this one as advisory for that rule rather than sufficient, which means it helps real readers without being accepted as evidence you conformed.
- G76sufficientUpdate content only when the user asks
- G110sufficientMake client-side redirects instant, not timed
- H76sufficientMake meta refresh redirects instant, never timed
- H83sufficientWarn users when links open new windows
- SCR19sufficientNever change context when a select changes
- SCR24sufficientOpen new windows only when the user asks
This guide is our interpretation of W3C technique G200: Opening new windows and tabs from a link only when necessary. W3C publishes its techniques as guidance rather than as the standard, and says so on every one of them. The success criterion is what conformance is measured against, and a technique is one documented way to meet it.