Update rich text streamfield blocks to open external links in a new tab

[kristinashu]

Follow up from - [PNI] Make external links open in a new tab #7878

We've started testing to see if opening external links in a new tab affects our analytics around bounce rate and sessions in a positive way. tl;dr is yes so we've have decided to expand this to include universal new-tab link behaviour from the rich text streamfield component in order to update this across the entire CMS.

• All rich text streamfield blocks open external links in a new tab

[mattcfilbert]

I don't have the full context, but is there an easy way to manually update the links in the rich text?

If not, may be worth looking into leveraging an HTML serializer like this one to automatically add the target="_blank" attribute to each link.

[Pomax]

There is not, and while we can always hack something together, this is CMS-managed content and templates so the first step is to see if the Wagtail folks have ideas here.

[tbrlpld]

I just wanted to raise that the "open in new tab/window" behaviour is not recommended from a usability and accessibility stand-point. Especially low-vision users might miss that a new tab has been opened.

There are use cases when the "new tab/window" behaviour is beneficial (e.g. while filling a form), but these are context dependent and don't apply to all situations.

See also:

• https://www.nngroup.com/articles/new-browser-windows-and-tabs/
• https://designsystem.wwu.edu/accessibility/guide/links-should-open-same-tabwindow

[tbrlpld]

Re: implementation: Since the change is requested for rich text fields and blocks and both are/should be rendered with the richtext filter, that might be a good place for it. This would also avoid having to mess with Wagtails mechanism for storing and retrieving richtext.

[tbrlpld]

Thinking about this now, I think 1 is a fairly ambitious estimate.