Naming links

In the UK there are many that rely on a screen reader to help them.

Screen readers are mainly associated with those who are blind or have sight loss, but they are also used by some with learning disabilities or those where English is a second language to help them learn to read.

Did you know:

around 1.5 million people have a learning disability
around 2 million people are living with some form of sight loss or vision deterioration

Name links how you would say them

If you were to tell someone about a website or webpage, what would you call it?

Would you call it 'Click here'?
Would you call it 'h t t p s colon slash slash w w w dot bbc dot co dot uk slash bitesize'?

No, you would call it by it's name or how you would say it e.g., 'BBC Bitesize'

A screen reader reads out links how they are named. So, if you call a link 'click here' that's what it would read out.

Adding links with a descriptive title is very easy to do, it can take seconds to do. This two-minute video shows you how to add descriptive links, as well as demonstrates how a screen reader reads them out.

This link is the below video with full transcript

Links in screen readers

In screen readers links are often listed in a menu for easy reference.

In this menu list they are on their own and away from the rest of the text on the page.

Imagine a whole list of links named just 'click here' or read out letter by letter starting 'h t t p colon slash'.

This would not be very helpful and you wouldn't know where they were going.

But descriptive links are actually easier for everyone.

In a long document how will you know which 'click here' is the link you want to go back to?

You would have to read the text around it to work out if it was the right link, so having links named means everyone can find them more easily.