Make links meaningful

Imagine all the links on one page being read out to you without any other context. Would you be able to understand what those links are for? Would you know what to expect when you choose a link?

For people who can't see the page, or find moving around the page difficult, assistive technology can give users a list of all the links (text or image) that are on the Web page. Meaningful link text will help users who want to choose from this list of links.

The text of the link should describe the purpose of the link. If the link takes you to a document or another web page, the name of the document or web page is usually enough.

Here are the six first link on a health and wellbeing page.

The links are underlined, and it's pretty clear what to expect when you click them

• Aids, adaptations and equipment
• Children with disabilities, learning difficulties or life-limiting conditions
• Mental health and emotional wellbeing
• Multi-agency planning pathway
• Health visiting service
• Autism

The image below shows links to download a couple of PDF documents. Leaving aside the argument for never using PDFs online, you can understand what the second leaflet is about, but the first one is less clear.

 In the link I would write "Family Information Service main leaflet" so that it's clear to someone using assistive technology.

Click here

Don't use link text, such as ‘click here’ or ‘read more’. These phrases give no clue to what you will find.

Here is an example from a Local Offer home page. The actual links for each section are the titles "Social Care" and "Health" and the "Read more" buttons. The images do not link to the new pages.

The screen reader will say something like:

"Social Care, Link, Read more, Link, Health, Link, Read more, Link"

As you can see, this is a bit clumsy, and not helpful.

But you know what? People who put the Local Offer together, under tight timetables, did the best they could at the time. If you don't know about how screen readers work, you won't think about problems like this.

It's one of the reasons I wrote this course.

 📝 It's time to look at the links in your Local Offer.  and share your "before and after" examples in the discussion.