Guideline to open help links in new tab or not
In the helping users section of the pajamas, we make use of two kinds of text links. While it's clear what the text should be, there's no guideline whether that link should open in a new tab or not.
We do however have some general guidelines about external links.
More details
I personally am in favor of the new tab functionality, and this makes sense for GitLab.com where we now redirect all help links to the external site https://docs.gitlab.com.
For self-managed instances however, the help links still point to the /help
page of the instance.
Accessibility issues
Best practice for accessibility by default is to use native browser behavior and open in the same window.
Once target="_blank"
is used it disables all other browser options, so it’s best to let the user choose.
Resources
Edited by Achilleas Pipinellis