I guess as the saying goes “we’ll have to agree to disagree” at this point.

Opening new windows is nothing malicious or contentious to me, it is a practice to allow the user to see the link you want, while also staying on the same page/place as they were before without having to pres the “back” button on their browser.

It’s convenience, nothing more.

Capital Letters For A Sentence Just Looks Better.

It’s why it is a best practice for virtually all ads (AdWords, LinkedIn, et. al), but again, that’s your own preference.

It’s good to discuss this and have an open dialogue about it, so thanks for that again!

Please see this page: ‘Opening new windows and tabs from a link only when necessary’: http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/G200.html

which states: ” In general, it is better not to open new windows and tabs since they
can be disorienting for people, especially people who have difficulty
perceiving visual content”.

As for capital letters, it is not a case of ease of scanning or cleanliness it is readability. Users expect sentences to conform to grammatical norms, more so when the user in question is cognitively disabled. Reading ease is vital for many disabled (and regular) users and should not be contorted.

I don’t agree with your approach to titles but will conceed that it is a much more contentious area. The others, I believe, are wrong.

As to the Capital Letters — this is a personal preference, and something that I have found is more elegant, and clean than lower case.

The Upper Case allows someone to scan the text more easily and glean what it is about as opposed to making it like regular text.

Again, this is not set in stone, please feel free to do as you like on your own or client’s websites, but for a cleaner aesthetic this is something I much prefer, especially when mousing over an image.

Finally, regarding titles, they do not hurt and only take an extra 10 seconds to create and could add value to both the user and search engines.

There is no harm in creating them, and the slight chance that they help with SEO — and more than likely, user appreciation for explaining the image, where the images is about to go (if I click on it) and other considerations.

Again, thanks for the discussion and bringing up some awesome points!

I think that as users we see things differently — and especially as business owners.

Whenever I surf the web and there are imbedded links in a post that I want to continue reading, I want nothing more than to open those links in either new tabs and/or a new window as I want to continue my place on the current page and keep reading the post I was originally reading.

As such, for usability, allowing the user this option — opening in a new window automatically for convenience or they can press the “control” or other button to get it to open in a new tab themselves — allows for fluidity and doesn’t break the reading experience.

Others may disagree, but this is my experience and usability best practice, but I again thank you for bringing another viewpoint to the discussion.

Could you explain why you suggest Capital Letters For Alt And Title? I’ve never heard that before. I can’t see how this helps, it just makes the sentence harder to read – nigh on impossible for someone with reading difficulites.

Lastly, titles. They’re so poorly supported across browsers that a wise lady once said to me: “If you wan’t something to be accessible, don’t put in in a title attribute.”