G201 and links in emails

[cverges-medallia]

Regarding “G201: Giving users advanced warning when opening a new window”, I’m trying to understand implications on email content design.

Email clients/readers will, by their nature, open links in a separate browser/window/tab. This behavior is determined more by the app’s settings than the email content itself. Placing text with each link warning to this app-specific behavior also seems repetitive and distracting. (Note that images and icons in emails and repetitive text become problematic for spam filters.)

So is it the responsibility of the email reader app to manage how to alert the user? Or does the content author sending the emails bear responsibility/the burden for guessing how a third party app will behave relative to their message?

[patrickhlauke]

Emails are arguably not "web content" as such. So the thinking behind G201 doesn't necessarily apply in this non-web context

[mraccess77]

I think email could be web content if viewed as an emended resource on a web page - just as PDFs can be web content.

[patrickhlauke]

but then links wouldn't open a new application window. and if a web-based email client forces links to open in new tabs/windows, that's then the responsibility of the web-based client, not the email content author