Keeping Tabs on Tabs

Does anyone remember Tab Cola? It was produced by Coke, and was available between 1963 and 2020. It was the first diet soda Coke produced. Its name was chosen by the company’s recently acquired IBM 1401 computer (although it preferred spelling the name with a double ‘b’ – this second ‘b’ was removed by its human overlords). In 1992, Coke released a clear version, producing the mildly creepy sensation of drinking something that looked like soda or tonic water but which tasted like ordinary cola.

We aren’t really here to learn about that kind of Tab™. There is, of course, another type of tab that we come into contact with on a daily basis – the ones that sit across the top of our browser.  When we create a link in any web content, it is easy to add the instruction to open this in a new tab. That is what I did with the opening paragraph – if you hadn’t clicked on the links as you read it, please go back and click on each link to see what the effect is.

Now you have at least nine tabs open (including this one). In fact, the latest advice is to not open new links in a new tab.

Why keep all the content in the same tab?

Word on the street used to be that if you were opening content with a hyperlink to another site, you should open this in a new tab. Opening a PDF? New tab. Want your content to be spread out like all the nations of the earth before you, so that your site visitors can survey your mighty empire and give praise to you like a deity? New tab new tab new tab!!

But the thinking has changed, and user experience (UX) designers now advocate for opening all links (with a couple of exceptions below) in the same tab. Why is this?

One of the main principles of good UX is that the user maintains as much control as possible. A user has the ability with any link to open it in a new tab or not (they can hold down the CMD button on a Mac/the CTRL button on a Windows PC as you click on a link) – but only if the link by default is programmed to open in the same tab. If a link is created to open in a new tab there isn’t the equivalent keyboard (or assistive device) action to force it to open in the same tab: in other words, control has been taken away from the user.

And user control becomes critical if you are an individual with a disability who is surfing the web. A user employing a screen reader has a very different experience than someone who can see all their tabs open in one space (a screen reader sees them sequentially). If a user clicks on eight links and they all open in new tabs then it means to work their way through those pages they have to have the page name read to them.

This relies on pages being named correctly by the content creators whose pages you are linking to, and this is not always the case.

As a responsible content creator, you decide therefore to only open pages in a new tab if the destination page has an accurate and unique page title. Otherwise, they stay in the same tab. This creates a problem: now some of your pages open in a new tab and some don’t. Your users have lost not only control of how a page loads, but also any idea of consistency on your website. They won’t know if a page will open in the same tab or another.

When can we open links in new tabs?

There are a few times that opening up in a new tab is fully justified and improves the UX.

The first of these is if you have a link in a form – one that provides further context, instructions, or conditions. If you need to present users with a long waiver to which they have to agree it does not make any sense to have this load in the tab where the form is also housed – the user will lose any information they have entered into the form already. The waiver should be made to automatically load in a new tab when the link to it is clicked.

If a user is logged into a secured area and clicking on a link that leads to a page outside that area, clicking it and loading the content in the same tab might log them out of the area. In that scenario, it is better to have the link load externally. (You can test first of all whether a user will be logged out if they click on a link and it loads in the same tab before you go the opposite route.)

Another instance for this action would be when you present a video or audio on the page. Some content creators, assuming the user has started playing an embedded video, choose to make any links on that page pop open a new tab. The reasoning behind this is that if the user clicks on a link while the video is playing, they may lose their place in the video and be diverted from it. While this justification makes sense, it also creates that inconsistency that can make users uncertain of what will happen every time they click on a link. Ultimately, it is a judgment call for the page creator to decide whether or not to open links in a new tab in this situation.

Let’s bring it back to Tab™ Cola

The really unique thing about Tab Cola was that version of the drink that was transparent. Remember that as a guiding principle when creating links: you want things to be as clear as possible. Users should know where all links open and the best way to do that is to work with the default behaviour in all browsers: the link opens in the same tab. That consistency makes the behaviour of every link very clear. Plus it’s refreshing and has zero calories!

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Some further reading:

External Links, New Tabs, and Accessibility

A11y Tips: External links and New Tabs

WC3: Opening new windows and tabs from a link only when necessary