Ambiguous Links: Understanding the issues

Links are essential for helping people navigate the web.

Some links are accessible for all, while others can frustrate users and create barriers for people with disabilities.

Ambiguous links are links with unclear content. The content might be hard to read or understand. It might also be hard to determine where the link goes.

For example, raw URLs are ambiguous because they are hard to read. It might also be hard to know where the link will go.

In comparison, a descriptive link like “Company Training Hub” is easy to read. It’s also clear where it takes the user.

Have you ever struggled to find a room at a conference or office building? Unclear signage can make it hard to go to the right place. More so when you’re not in a familiar building.

Signage with long numbers or other content that’s hard to understand turn navigation into a frustrating guessing game. You may know you are in the correct area. However, you might need to try different things to get to the right place.

This scenario may be more frustrating for people with a physical disability. If the doors aren’t accessible, someone with crutches may need help every time they try to go into a room!

Imagine an online conference with meeting links that are unhelpful and unclear.

If an agenda lists URLs that you can’t tell apart, you may open wrong links first. It may take multiple tries to find the right talk.

For those with disabilities, each wrong link adds more unnecessary steps.

People using screen readers navigate links differently than other users. Screen readers allow users to open a list of all the links on a page. Screen reader users may use this feature to skim the page and get a sense of where they can go.

Screen readers allow users to open a list of all the links on a page. For some screen reader users, this may be the primary way to navigate around a site. For others, it might be a last resort if a page isn’t organized. In either case, a user might get stuck trying to distinguish between links that sound the same.