Writing Link Text

Your link text should accurately and meaningfully describe the link destination.

(Bad) Example 1: Open source software is software with source code that anyone can inspect, modify, and enhance. Click here to find out more.

Imagine you are a screen reader user and you are searching the page for links (which is a common use case for screen reader users). If you hear “Link: Click here to find out more” without context, it may not be very helpful. Instead, consider the following:

(Better) Example 2: Open source software is software with source code that anyone can inspect, modify, and enhance. Click here to find out more about open source software.

or

(Best) Example 3: Open source software is software with source code that anyone can inspect, modify, and enhance.

Links that open in a new tab

Most research over the past twenty years of web usability suggests that users find forcing links to open in new tabs to be disruptive, something that holds true for both mobile usability and accessibility concerns. For this reason, it’s best to not open links in a new tab and allow users’ default behaviors to take precedence.

However, if you absolutely must open a link in a new tab, you have to convey that information in the link text. It is highly disruptive to users with cognitive accessibility concerns, as well as some screen reader users, to switch to a new browser tab or window without warning.

Additional Resources

• Writing for Web Accessibility (from the W3 Standards Organization)
• Writing link text (Harvard)

Guides & Tutorials

Looking for specific information about how to create accessible content? We’ve created a few guides below.