Don’t be the weakest link
Creating clear, instructive link language makes websites more usable and accessible for everyone.
Understanding link language
Hyperlinks are the simple but essential snippet of technology that make the internet possible. (If they didn’t exist, imagine typing addresses every time you wanted to go to a new page.)
Hypertext that describes the link properly is critical for all users. Take this example:
- You can learn more about this subject. Professor A. Einstein.
What is going to happen if I click the link? Will it take me to a biographical page about Prof Einstein? To their lab website? Open an email to write to them? Then consider these links:
These three are much better links because they describe what will happen if you click the link. Helpful for everyone.
Links and Accessibility
But: even more helpful for people who use screen readers to help them browse the web. This is because a major method for browsing with such tools to set the screen reader to hop from link to link on the page. This means when they tab to this section of the site:
You can learn more about this subject. Professor A. Einstein.
all they will hear is “Link: Professor A. Einstein.” They are left with even less information than people reading visually (who can at least make a guess based on the words You can learn more about this subject).
Again with the examples:
Read about Professor Einstein’s research.
Visit Professor Einstein’s lab site.
The text makes explicit what will happen if the user choses to click that link.
The idea of a call to action in the link is useful, but sometimes link text becomes too long if we try to always include a verb. For example, why use text like:
Consult a list of available programs in the Math Department.
While this is more succinct but still signals what the user will encounter:
Available programs in the Math Department.
The text we use in links is one of the biggest areas of improvement required to optimise accessibility on the web – at Carleton and everywhere – and as we have seen, like all improvements which aid accessibility, these features improve the experience for everyone.