Creating accessible links
- The 'link text' should tell the user where the link leads
- The 'title' attribute of the link should not repeat the link text
- Links should use conventional HTML not JavaScript or flash
- Where it is an image, the alt text must be implicative of the new pages content.
- Linking to documents other than plain pages should be clearly identified
Links are how people navigate from page to page within a website, or from one website to another. As such the importance can not overrated and they should be usable to everyone.
Link text
Unfortunately many websites have links that will frustrate (or even be unusable to many users) - people who use screen readers. After a page is read, users with screen readers will often pass back over the document going from link to link with the tab key to select where to go next. As such the link text is often read out of context, and only the actual linking text is read back (often shown underlined and in blue).
Imagine as you're going back over a document to find the next link but all links sound like “click here” “click here” or “download” “download” “download”, as such on links - use descriptive text.
One way of further describing where a link goes is using a title element within a link (we don't do this in UsableContent at present, as we feel it is easier to include the description within the link). A common error is to re-iterate the the link text again, this unfortunately sounds like a highly annoying echo.
Linking to documents
Documents are often linked to, without warning of them being a larger download. For instance it seems to be common practice to link to a large PDF file, which can be several megabytes. This is frustrating unless you're warned in advance and in many cases can lead to computers crashing.
Linking with images
Not all users can see images, and so where an image is used (possibly to represent a button) having the alt text explaining where the link would take you is vital. All images should have alt text, even if its empty – the reason behind this is that some screen readers will, when they find an image simply say “image” “image” “image” without it.
Conclusion
Creating the right links isn't hard, the only hard aspect is to remember to do it - consistently. It also helps if you have a CMS which is designed to create accessible content.
