Links Should Be Self-Explanatory

A simple accessibility tip for writing content on the web

in Software — 216 words — 1 min read — No comments yet

An interesting tip about links on the web from this article about accessibility from design firm Varvet:

Links should be self explanatory. Using “Click here” or “Read more” as link text makes the destination a mystery if you’re navigating a page by jumping through its links, which is often what screen reader users do. Ambiguous links is the third most problematic item on the web (after CAPTCHAs and Flash) according to a WebAIM Screen Reader User Survey.

Admittedly, the article is a bit dated—I’m skeptical that Flash is still a top accessibility concern on the web—but, as far as I can tell, the behavior of screenreaders has not changed.

In cases where “Read more” really is preferable, you can use aria-labelledby to point the link to some other element (like a card heading) that contains a better description of what the link leads to. (But only do this when necessary! Remember, no ARIA is better than bad ARIA.)

Descriptive link text is also good for SEO, according to BloggingX (at least when it comes to outbound links).

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