Tips for accessibility

6. Avoid the use of pop up windows or other windows without telling the user

When web contents are presented in pop up windows or new windows, users with visual impairment may not detect them easily thus may cause confusion to them.

Although some assistive tools can already switch to the latest opened window and read the contents of the pop up page, pop up windows may cause the following confusions -

• The user will find that they cannot go back to the previous page with the 'back' button at the new window. In this case, they will have to close the current pop up window first.
• If pop up windows are used at the entry page (quite common with hot news announcements or advertising), it may mislead the user that they have entered a wrong site as the page format could be very different from the entry page which they normally visit.
• Many of the hot news and advertising pop up windows have no link and could consist of entirely graphics or animation. The user will get very confused, as they seem to enter a page with nothing in it.

Suggestion -

• The use of such technique could be avoided if possible. If it is necessary to use such feature, some text information in the pop up page could be added to inform the user that he/she is at a different page and also a text link to 'close' the page could be provided for the user to exit that window.