For Faculty

Utilizing Descriptive Hyperlinks

by Jackie Luft, Ed.D, Online Accessibility Specialist

Instructors use hyperlinks in our syllabi for a variety of reasons. We link to the text website, supplemental material, IT Help Central, Student Disability Services, and many others. There are a few ways to add links documents, but the right way is to use a descriptive link, which is essentially the title of the website with a hyperlink attached.

A good example is a link to the TTU Online Accessibility Website. Notice the link is underlined and another color. The title is an actual part of the sentence. There is no need for a "click here" or "for more information" explanation. A sighted reader will see the different color and underline: both are used together to ensure people who are colorblind can be made aware of the link by seeing the underline. (This is also a good time to point out that you should refrain from underlining text in your documents that are not links. Sighted users will assume that there is a link they can access.)

While looking for links in the prior example, an individual using a screen reader will hear, "Link TTU Online Accessibility Website." Screen readers can also be programmed to scan a page or document for links. If your student was looking for the link to the Student Disability Services, they can read only the links in your syllabus, and then select the correct link when it is read to them.

Using a descriptive link ensures screen reader users have the same ease of use as a sighted user: they can find what they are looking for by scanning a document instead of listening to everything written on the page. If a syllabus uses "Click here for more information" as the title of the link, a screen reader user will not know where the link is taking them without listening to all the text.

Sometimes document or webpage creators will use the actual URL of the link. This is not an acceptable policy because the screen readers will read the url character by character. So the above example of the TTU Online Accessibility website will read, "W-W-W-.-T-T-U-.-E-D-U-/-A-C-C-E-S-S-I-B-I-L-I-T-Y". This creates listening fatigue and comprehension of the final destination of the link becomes difficult.

If you have any questions about utilizing descriptive hyperlinks, you can let us know at the Online Accessibility Lab!