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Hyperlinks

Hyperlinks are an efficient way to provide users direct access to other online resources, such as documents, websites, or videos. The way hyperlinks are displayed can affect their accessibility.

What Makes Hyperlinks LESS Accessible?

Raw URL text (e.g., https://app.jove.com/science-education/v/11467/chemistry-of-the-cell) makes reading with assistive technologies, such as a screen reader, more difficult and tedious.

URLs embedded in generic text, such as “click here” or “more” make finding a specific link difficult for everyone. Assistive technology, such as a screen reader, can search for all hyperlinks on a page.

Best Practices

  • Make hyperlink text descriptive and meaningful so it makes sense out of its context.
  • Keep hyperlink text concise without sacrificing its meaning.
  • Make hyperlink text at least a word or phrase, not so small (e.g., a single letter or number) that users may have difficulty clicking in such a small area.
  • If a link is relatively short and easy to understand, such as www.google.com or www.ucf.edu, raw URL text is acceptable.
  • Make the text unique for each hyperlink, if possible, to make it easy to locate in a search.
  • When hyperlinking an image, provide both a description of the image and the destination of the link in the alternative text.
  • Set hyperlinks to open in a new tab so the user’s place in the current page is not lost.
  • Use the default link styling provided so that links are visually distinguishable from other text styling on the page.

Resources