Hyperlinks have an important role in navigating digital content for everyone, especially for assistive technology users. Making links accessible requires making them understandable and making them useful.
Why does this matter?
Keyboard Accessibility
If the only way to access a link is with a mouse, the link is unusable by people who cannot use a mouse. Users must be able to navigate to and select each link using the keyboard alone. In most browsers, the Tab key allows users to jump from link to link, and the Enter key allows users to select a link.
Screen Readers
Screen readers generally inform users that a piece of text (or a graphic) is a link, and some screen reader users navigate from link to link, skipping the text in between.
When screen readers come across a link, they read it as “link [link text]”. This makes things like link to website repetitive, since it will read as “link link to website”. It also makes typed out links (like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_individual_dogs) annoying, since the screen reader will read out every part of that link down to the punctuation.
Best Practices
Follow these best practices to write accessible link text:
- Lead with the most important info
- Link text should indicate the destination
- Avoid repetitive or generic link text like “click here”, “read more”, or “more information”.
Examples
Good Examples
- Listen to Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up on Spotify
- If you have any questions about accessibility, contact the Technology Accessibility team.
Bad Examples
- Learn more about Bama Bound Orientation: https://orientation.ua.edu
- Click here for more information about the history of Big Al.