Ambiguous Links: Understanding the issues
Understand what makes a link inaccessible and the benefits to not only people with disabilities, but everyone
Length Estimate: 3 to 5 mins
Lesson contents:
Part 1 | Ambiguous Links: Understanding the issues
This training helps:
Anyone who creates and manages links like through emails, marketing, and resource hubs like SharePoint
- Content writers
- Marketers
- Project Managers
- … and more
Not all links are accessible
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.
Links with issues
There are a couple of common accessibility issues with links:
- Empty links, which are links with no content or destination.
- Ambiguous links, which have content that is vague or hard to understand.
Both can create challenges for people with vision disabilities, cognitive disabilities, and those who use assistive technology to read or interact with content.
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) combine empty and ambiguous links together, but we will be separating them for our lessons.
What are Ambiguous Links?
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.
Non-interactive examples
Ambiguous link
https://Online.com/afwe10/648.train/aBtG90
Descriptive link
Learn more about Company Training Hub.
Ambiguous links can feel like being lost in a building
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!
People get lost online with ambiguous links
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.
How ambiguous links can impact screen reader users
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.
Top 3 favorite red fruits
This audio example highlights a common scenario, where a site uses “Read more” links to take users to different articles. Listen to hear how a screen reader might read out a list of links like these.
“Links menu. Read more, read more, read more”
How common is this ambiguous links problem?
13.2%
Out of 1 million websites in a 2024 study, 13.2% of pages had ambiguous link text, such as “click here,” “more,” “continue,” etc.
Each page had around 6 ambiguous links on average. (WebAim Study)
Thankfully, this was a decrease from 17.3% of pages in 2023. And, we can improve this statistic even further with the tips in Ambiguous Links: Addressing the issues.
How do ambiguous links impact you or someone you know?
Please reflect on which scenarios apply to you or someone you know:
- I/they use a screen reader and want to know which link to select without reading all the text around it.
- I/they prefer to know where the link goes before opening it.
- I/they like to use links in lists (like shopping lists) for quick, clear access
- I/they prefer the look of cleaner links with less clutter from the URLs
- I/they don’t need a clear link text
Takeaways
Ambiguous link text can cause confusion and a frustrating guessing game for people with and without disabilities.
Want to learn more about how to address ambiguous links?
Ambiguous links have many causes and fixes.
In Ambiguous Links: Addressing the issues, you get quick examples and tips to clarify them with real-world cases. It will take 4 to 6 minutes.
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