Hyperlinks

Introduction

Hyperlinks or simply links are that elements of any document through which we can move quickly in another section of the same document or in another document or even in any website or apps in the internet.

Hyperlink does not only helps to navigate, but also helps to provide additional information and reference in any document.

 While adding Hyperlinks in the documents, we should consider following points.

• The hyperlink should be embedded within the text of document.
• The hyperlink should be short and understandable and it should be meaningful to users.

Embedding in Text

We often see people putting full URL in document. For example

For more information go here: www.ekantipur.com/news/2020/04/26/fullnews.html.

But it is a wrong practice because the screen reader used by visually impaired persons reads this link character by character like, w,w,w,e,k… and thus creating lot of inconvenience for the users..

Thus we can change as : Read Full News on Kantipur Daily. Here the url link is same just that it is embedded within the text.

Clear and Concise

Hyperlinks should be specific, clear and should provide information about the context. For example, we have seen a lot of people writing “Click Here for more”. 

Using Click Here is not good from the accessibility point of view. Instead of writing, “Click Here”, we can write clear and specific word for the link, like “More info on Corona Virus”.

Meaningful

The meaning of the hyperlink should not be missed while making it short. The name of the link should be written in such a way so that the readers will be able to make the decision whether to visit link or not as soon by just reading the text. Therefore, the link should be informative.

For example, in a link to point to website of Yoga, you can write Benefits of Yoga instead of just Yoga

However, just to make informative, naming of link should not be made very long. So it is not necessary to write – benefits of yoga over use of traditional allopathic and homeopathic medicines to point to a yoga website and rather just use Benefits of Yoga, like discussed earlier.

Writing Email Address

However while writing E-mail address as a link, it should be written in full url.

For example, if you are going to mention the E-mail address of BBC nepali service, use write full E-mail address like nepali.letters@bbc.co.uk instead of Email of BBC Nepali

If we don’t write full email address, the users will get confused on which one is link for Email and which is link for a web page.