Use meaningful labels for links |
WAI / WCAG 1.0 Priority 2 checkpoint 13.1
Issue Description The page contains links whose label (i.e. the content of the A element) or title (the TITLE attribute of A) appears not to be informative enough. Ensure that labels are meaningful, informative and brief. Link text should be meaningful enough to make sense when read out of context -- either on its own or as part of a sequence of links. Link text should also be terse. For example, in HTML, write "Information about version 4.3" instead of "click here" or "click" or "here" or "go". In addition to clear link text, content developers may further clarify the target of a link with an informative link title (e.g., in HTML, the "title" attribute).
How to fix Edit the label of the link so that it clearly describes where the link goes. The description should be brief and as much as possible understood if read out of the context (i.e. in a list of all the links of the page). If the link label is not enough, also use the link title (which in many browsers will be displayed as a tool-tip, in a small temporary window, when the mouse is moved over the link). If you use link titles, however, use them consistently on all the links of the site.
Issue Explanation Most assistive technologies are able to extract all the links from the page and render them as a separate list. In these cases, from the information that is contained in the link label (i.e. content), and in the link title attribute, users have to be able to understand where the link leads. For this reason, links like "more info", especially if repeated several times in the page, are not clear enough when taken out from the context. Consider also that link labels should provide as much information as needed for the user to discern what the destination of the link is. The user should have a clear understanding of where a link goes before clicking it. Otherwise the user will have to spend time in waiting for the new page to be downloaded and displayed, and spend effort in reading it, possibly to no avail. This is especially important for links leading to very heavy pages (to warn the user of a longer than usual response time), or to pages requiring specific plug-ins (like PDF, Flash, MS Word, etc.).