15 ms·

Don’t use “click here” as link text (2001)

520 points by theandrewbailey 1y ago

Lindby 1y ago
[flagged]
- Cthulhu_ 1y ago
  It's aimed at web developers and content authors who have never used a screen reader.
stogot 1y ago
I actually prefer what they don’t recommend, and I don’t know why
- chungy 1y ago
  Same here. This is just a style guideline that W3C has no real business in determining.
  - sham1 1y ago
    Well good thing that this style guide is just what W3C considers best practices and is not a standard. > While the tips are carefully reviewed by the participants of the group, they should not be seen as anything else than informative bits of wisdom, and especially, they are not normative W3C technical specifications.
  - hombre_fatal 1y ago
    We shouldn't be so sensitive. > [Our published tips] should not be seen as anything else than informative bits of wisdom, and especially, they are not normative W3C technical specifications.
    - rs186 1y ago
      Then they shouldn't be publishing "tips" in the first place. I'd very much like to see resources put in more meaningful things, like, drafting standards.
- lionkor 1y ago
  Me, too. The way they recommend feels like a "link to a Wikipedia article", not a call to action
  - matusp 1y ago
    Yeah, Wikipedia, but also many news sites use this style. It is mostly not a call to action, but additional optional information you can check out. That's why it feels wrong to use it in these cases. I think that some of the examples are outdated compared to how people format the web nowadays.
- mannykannot 1y ago
  I do too - it tells the reader what they have to do in order to bring about the desired result, more directly than do any of the alternatives.
kleiba 1y ago
I remember that I often got confused in the early days of Wikipedia because the way they use link text was different from what was common on the web back in the day.
ceejayoz 1y ago
I used to make websites for internal use at a hospital by docs. “Click here” is just the start. Bold, red, and blinking. People barely read, let alone process what they’re reading. “Click here” is at least simple.
- cyanydeez 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - Uracnt 1y ago
    [dead]
JadeNB 1y ago
One reason they omit is that, by default, bookmark text is (was? I hardly bookmark any more) the text of the link. So, if you don't curate your bookmarks carefully, you get a folder full of bookmarks called "Click here!"
- xnx 1y ago
  > bookmark text is (was? I hardly bookmark any more) the text of the link I'm not sure I've seen this behavior. More commonly, it is the <title> of the page.
  - Cthulhu_ 1y ago
    Based on the comment I'd expect an "add link to bookmarks" entry in the right click context menu, but I don't remember ever seeing it. It makes sense to use the link text in that case though, else the browser would have to access the underlying webpage to fetch the title. Which shouldn't be a problem, but at one point some web apps were broken and did destructive actions on GET requests, and Google Gears tried to optimize the internet by prefetching webpages... which caused some whoopsies. But, thankfully, web developers and web technology improved since then.
    - JadeNB 1y ago
      > Based on the comment I'd expect an "add link to bookmarks" entry in the right click context menu, but I don't remember ever seeing it. I just checked, and desktop Firefox still offers it. At least, version 138 on macOS does.
      - 1718627440 1y ago
        There are browser, that lack basic features like bookmarking links?
        JadeNB 1y ago
        I couldn't figure out how to do it on mobile Firefox, though I couldn't swear it's not possible. I didn't do a survey of others.
scary-size 1y ago
The UK's Government Digital Services make a similar recommendation [1] in their accessibility guidelines. [1] https://design.homeoffice.gov.uk/accessibility/links https://design.homeoffice.gov.uk/accessibility/links
- rerdavies 1y ago
  Their recommendation is very different. W3c says: Get *Amaya* Read more about *Amaya* The home office says: *Get Amaya* *Read more about Amaya* which seems much more sensible, but suffers from a different problem when used in context. Personally, I think both are confounding two different use cases. Links are often used inline in text. The use case that W3c and the Home Office are addressing are use cases that would be better address by out-of-line buttons: [Download] [Documentation] But both seem broken when the use case is hyperlinks in inline text. To use a concrete example, how should one rewrite the following? PiPedal is a guitar effects pedal that runs on Raspberry Pi. To download PiPedal, *click here*. To read the documentation, *click here*. I get the objection. But the fix seems unacceptable: PiPedal is a guitar effects pedal that runs on Raspberry Pi. Get Pipedal. Read the documentation. Nuh uh. Not happening. I'm not sure what you would call that. Meta-grammatically incorrect? Whatever it is, it is not idiomatic English. Pipedal is a guitar effects pedal that runs on Raspberry Pi. To download PiPedal, visit the *Download Page*. To learn more about Pipedal, view the *Documentation*. Perhaps. That is the actual text I used in my documentation. But, speaking from personal experience, the challenge is that it is often very difficult to nounify "click here" Ubuntu Server installs don't suffer from this problem; but before choosing an Ubuntu Server install, you should read the *Ubuntu Server* section of the "Installing on Ubuntu" page. Which makes one wonder, what exactly is the foul that's being committed when "here" is used as a pronoun for the content that's being referenced? In this use case, there is not an actual accessibility issue, because the the link sits inline within a sentence that provides all the context that's necessary to indicate what to expect when you click. And in the very first example given, the text is from a lede in a web page where concision matters. To download PiPedal, click *here*. Is that really an accessibility issue? particularly when there's are buttons right above it that say [ Download ] [ Documentation ] The actual metric that counts here is: how many times will people visit the Download page? And from that perspective there is significant doubt in my mind as to whether the following text will be better. To download PiPedal, visit the *Download Page*.
baggachipz 1y ago
Counterpoint to the other opinions so far: I feel like a link should be used for more information retrieval; therefore, the link should be descriptive of its forthcoming content. Instead of using a link as a call to action, shouldn't it be a button? This feels more "pure" in the semantic web context.
- Cthulhu_ 1y ago
  For sure; as other commenters pointed out that "click here" is unnecessary, as you can assume people know how links work. That is, it's not a call to action, unless the CTA is to "read more" about something or to "go to" a download page. But the action is to navigate, nothing more. If the action is to do something else, like start a download or submit a form, it should be a button. Of course, a download on the internet is usually a link to a file, which the browser decides how to handle - open or download. From an internet purist point of view, a link to download a file also makes sense.
jxjnskkzxxhx 1y ago
Exactly what is wrong about "to do XYZ click here"?
- alabhyajindal 1y ago
  From the suggestion email¹: > "Click here" assumes everyone has a computer and mouse. And it's not even needed: most users of the Web understand how to follow links. 1. https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa/2001Sep/0007.html https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa/2001Sep/0007.htm...
  - jxjnskkzxxhx 1y ago
    Sounds equivalent to saying we shouldnt the words "he" or "she" because some people identify with neither. Exclusionary towards people of different mouse abilities.
    - jxjnskkzxxhx 1y ago
      Towards differently abled devices would've been funnier wording.
- micromacrofoot 1y ago
  it's a little pedantic, but hyperlinks should describe what you get when you click on them not "<a>click here</a> to read more about dogs" but "read more in our <a>article about dogs</a>" imagine not being able to see and tabbing through a series of "click here"s
- jaas 1y ago
  The idea is that some people don’t click - that refers mainly to people using a mouse, and many people are not using a mouse. So it is overstating information about what to do.
robin_reala 1y ago
If you think about this from an accessibility point of view, screen readers for blind users present a linear view of a page. To escape from the linear view, they also typically allow users to access lists of elements like headers and links, out of context of their original position. If every link is labelled “click here” then you’re effectively removing non-linear access from those users.
- rerdavies 1y ago
  Sure. but who labels every link in there header as "click here"? A completely different use-case from inline hyperlinks.
- charcircuit 1y ago
  A screen reader should be smart enough to read out what the link is for.
  - hombre_fatal 1y ago
    How do you imagine that working? By reading surrounding text or by reading the URL? Those are worse experiences than descriptive anchor text. You can use something like macOS VoiceOver right now to see how it behaves.
    - charcircuit 1y ago
      >By reading surrounding text Yes, or it can summarize the text and explain what the link is to.
      - bluGill 1y ago
        LLMs attempt that, but their success is mixed - sometimes the summary is very bad.
      - DrewADesign 1y ago
        Imagine how long it would take to load a page of HN search results, or the table of contents of an online book, or a page with a lot of dead links, or a page with links to a whole bunch of non-textual content that it has to figure out is non-textual.
rerdavies 1y ago
This seems inelegant: Get *Amaya*. Tell me more about *Amaya*.
- pooloo 1y ago
  Inelegant was the state of the Internet back then, I loved it.
- xp84 1y ago
  Okay, but why not “Learn [More about Amaya]” ? More about Amaya is a noun phrase so it fits their standard.
  - rerdavies 1y ago
    My specific point of discomfort is that imperatives may be fine in menus, and lists, and buttons (where "click here" is never going to happen anyway). But as an inline hyperlink they seem idiomatically incorrect. "Learn more about Amaya" is still an imperative sentence. I guess technically, "To learn more about Amaya, view the datasheet." is also an imperative sentence. But to my mind, it scans better as inline text. Not quite sure how to nounify that one either. And interestingly, inability to find the "learn more about" link on landing pages for products I'm interested in is a source of constant frustration for me. There should be a word for "something halfway between the the breathless lede on a landing page, and "here's a thousand pages of documentation". For hardware products, the "datasheet" is exactly what I'm looking for; there doesn't seem to be an equivalent for software products.
piqufoh 1y ago
From the bottom of the page; > contributed Sep 2001 by Aaron Swartz Thoughts -- this advice is 24 years old (and I think largely ignored) -- Aaron Swartz (!)
- piqufoh 1y ago
  Aaron's suggestion (which seems to have been lost?) "Click here" assumes everyone has a computer and mouse. And it's not even needed: most users of the Web understand how to follow links.
  - xnx 1y ago
    > most users of the Web understand how to follow links. Often very hard to tell what's a link when it's not underlined and non-blue colors (or no color) is used.
    - jkestner 1y ago
      And Nielsen had plenty to say about that too.
      - xnx 1y ago
        Indeed. Craigslist seems to be about the only site out there that hasn't fallen for every dumb design fad of the past 30 years.
    - nemomarx 1y ago
      you shouldn't make things a link without decorations tbh when hn could use a more distinct style for it
    - rezonant 1y ago
      Which is also inaccessible (and goes against WCAG [1]) [1] https://webaim.org/blog/wcag-2-0-and-link-colors/ https://webaim.org/blog/wcag-2-0-and-link-colors/
  - netsharc 1y ago
fkyoureadthedoc 1y ago
Assuming that all their examples are consistent and actually download "Amaya", I'd prefer simply the hyperlink [Download Amaya](http://link-to-file http://link-to-file). Preferably with a download icon to indicate that it's going to be the actual file and not just a link to another page with the real download button hidden among 4 ads that are just download buttons.
fortran77 1y ago
I’m going to download Amaya now!
- bravesoul2 1y ago
  Click here!
scosman 1y ago
Lighthouse also warns against generic link text, like “Learn More”. It’s one of the few lighthouse warnings I just ignore.
- Cthulhu_ 1y ago
  In which case you ignore people with screen readers and search engines, too.
  - thesuitonym 1y ago
    Learn more is perfectly descriptive for people with screen readers.
    - scosman 1y ago
      And combined with resulting page, perfectly descriptive for search engines.
- mrweasel 1y ago
  How about changing the text ever so slightly, so rather than just "Learn More" it's "Learn move about X"?
  - carlosjobim 1y ago
    Consider a product listings page, with a "Buy" button/link next to every product. Should those links be changed to differ from each other? Google Lighthouse sure thinks so, so it's better ignored.
    - mrweasel 1y ago
      Fair point, no you're right that would be a bit silly to have "Buy X" instead of just "Buy". I would argue that that's the label of a button, not a link though.
      - 1y ago
bArray 1y ago
I disagree. I think we need to make it clear that following hyperlinks should always be a cognitive choice. > To download W3C's editor/browser Amaya, [click here]. This gives you an option, where multiple options may be available. > To download Amaya, go to the [Amaya Website] and get the necessary software. This is even better, as 'click here' assumes the input device. > Get [Amaya]! Whilst being simpler, it does not make clear that the action is optional. Whether I click something may require some additional information around the link, for example: > To download W3C's free editor/browser Amaya, go to the [Amaya Website] and select the latest version on the home page. Now I know that it's free, and I have instructions to carry out to find what I'm looking for.
- Cthulhu_ 1y ago
  This is very much from a sighted person's point of view. When you use screen readers, you can switch to a 'links' navigation mode and only go through links, in which case all you'd hear would be "click here", "Amaya website" and "Amaya". See also https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/link-purpose-in-context.html https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/link-purpose-in-..., also keeping in mind that since June, the underlying WCAG guideline is a EU-wide legal requirement for company websites.
  - tempfile 1y ago
    I don't think this is right. The WCAG allows for "programmatically determined link context" which includes text surrounding the actual link. "click here" is bad but "Amaya website" or "Amaya" are fine. e.g. from the WCAG examples you link to: > An account registration page requires successful completion of a [Turing test](https://www.w3.org/TR/turingtest/ https://www.w3.org/TR/turingtest/) before the registration form can be accessed.
  - bArray 1y ago
    > This is very much from a sighted person's point of view. When you use screen readers, you can switch to a 'links' navigation mode and only go through links, in which case all you'd hear would be "click here", "Amaya website" and "Amaya". I think this is a UX problem with screen readers, and actually probably something LLMs might massively help with. If I was designing something for screen readers, I would probably have interactive elements within a context window, i.e.: <context>To download W3C's free editor/browser Amaya, go to the <a href="..">Amaya Website</a> and select the latest version on the home page.</context> The user would hear "Amaya Website" and would then have some ability to also hear the link context. For pages missing the context windows some attempt could be made to create one automatically. > See also https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/link-purpose-in-context.html https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/link-purpose-in-... , also keeping in mind that since June, the underlying WCAG guideline is a EU-wide legal requirement for company websites. On this page itself, within the box "Success Criterion (SC)" the listener would hear "purpose of each link", "programmatically determined link context", "ambiguous to users in general". The last one is, well, ambiguous to users in general. Even as a sighted person, without selecting it, I wouldn't know what it is actually going to link to. I would say that the web is generally actively hostile towards screen readers, and not because of a lack of WCAG adoption. You have text in images (not just static, but also GIFs), JS heavy components, delayed loading, dependant interactions (such as captchas, navigation drop downs, etc), infinite scrolling - the list just goes on. The web is primary a highly visual space and likely will remain so. I don't think the EU's accessibility act is actually enforceable [1]. Unlike cookies, some of the changes required are massive, to the point where it may not even be worth existing in the EU market if it's enforced. > Incorporating captions into video content, as well as providing audio descriptions and transcripts Even proving you are compliant is a lot of cost, which includes audits and training staff. You can always trust the EU to regulate itself out of being competitive. [1] https://www.wcag.com/compliance/european-accessibility-act/ https://www.wcag.com/compliance/european-accessibility-act/
1970-01-01 1y ago
W3C missed the biggest problems (IMHO) with "click here" * It's only 10 char and much too short for someone to click when it's inline with other links. Let's not mention text squirming around the screen via molasses JS, kicking your text up, down, and around the screen for several seconds before those short 10 chars finally become stationary. * With high resolution touch screens, you're maybe 80% accurate on actually clicking right there. Again, my accuracy is my fat finger, and nearby links are just UI landmines.
- layer8 1y ago
  If a 10-character text link poses significant problems to be actuated, then something is really wrong with either the browser or the web page, not with the fact of having a 10-character link.
- thesuitonym 1y ago
  > It's only 10 char and much too short for someone to click when it's inline with other links. Let's not mention text squirming around the screen via molasses JS, kicking your text up, down, and around the screen for several seconds before those short 10 chars finally become stationary. That was much less of a problem in 2010, and either way not really something for the size of your hyperlink to fix.
- kerblang 1y ago
  Aye! Big fat isolated links win it for me. Can barely use touchscreens. Even with a mouse I am somewhat handicapped. The world has no sympathy. We need some kind of medical condition like "Slob Syndrome" to shame & guilt people with.
jasonlfunk 1y ago
The verb seems pretty important to me… ————- Learn more about [the browser] Never hear about [the browser] again Those links will do very different things.
dsr_ 1y ago
_Tell me more about Amaya_ is preferable to any shorter link. If, somehow, you have multiple links in a sentence, see if you can manage a word or two of unlinked text in between, or, better yet, stop being pretentious and focus on usefulness. Not: _You can run web browsers,_ _spreadsheets_ or _drawing software._ You can run: * _web browsers_ * _spreadsheets_ * _drawing software_
- Mordisquitos 1y ago
  > _Tell me more about Amaya_ > is preferable to any shorter link. I agree, but my reasoning is not about length but about semantics. The 'Tell me more about' part carries meaningful intention and makes no sense without the link, so it should be part of the link together with 'Amaya'. If on the other hand the example sentence was, say, 'You may be interested in Amaya: W3C's free editor/browser...' I would agree that the link should be limited to 'Amaya'—the meaning carried by the 'You may be interested in' part is tangential to the hyperlink.
0xbadcafebee 1y ago
I like it when pages tell me to "click here". It is clear and direct communication that doesn't assume I will infer exactly where I'm supposed to click for what thing. Not everyone sees or intuitively understands things the same way you do.
- eCa 1y ago
  > Not everyone sees or intuitively understands things the same way you do. That is true. And some people don’t see.
  - 0xbadcafebee 1y ago
    I'm fully aware. I grew up with a kid who was almost blind. Images can contain alt text metadata, but links can't. Why? Because some genius with an opinion decided links aren't allowed to have alt-text. The rationale for why links can't contain alt-text: Using alt text on a hyperlink would be redundant and potentially confusing for screen reader users, who may hear both the hyperlink text and the alt text Except we see here a great example of why this is wrong. We could tell a sighted user to click here, and simultaneously add alt-text that describes "this is a hyperlink which downloads the software". (which, by the way, would also help sighted people!!) An author drafting the link could choose what text is shown for the link, and what (if any) is shown for the alt-text. It doesn't have to be confusing. Yet with the current mandatory design examples, it is confusing! The suggested link text is just the name of the product!! What's the link going to do when you click it? Download something? Render a page? Show an image? Something else? How is that helping a blind person OR a non-blind person?! The spec should allow you to decide how the content is presented, in a way that works for both blind and non-blind people. But we see here that, in order to make a "beautiful engineering design" that supports blind and sighted people, it's actually making it harder for both. If they took away their arbitrary restriction, the content creator could be free to craft it however makes sense, in a way that supports all people well, rather than all people poorly.
    - deleted 1y ago
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deleted 1y ago
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guerrilla 1y ago
Okay but it doesn't say why. Why should one leave verbs out?
latexr 1y ago
The rule I follow is to write in a way that if all links were removed, it would still make sense. So “click here” never happens, because you can’t click text which isn’t a link. With that singular idea in mind, everything else falls into place naturally.
flessner 1y ago
I get it that "click here" is not descriptive, but so is simply linking "Amaya". What is it? A person? A fruit? People don't read websites linearly, in the best case they skim read all the buttons and links. I personally would include the verb as it gives important context and is a clearer CTA for the "skimmers". Amaya is W3C's... "Download Amaya"!
retsibsi 1y ago
Personally, I prefer the second example that they advise against. ("To download Amaya, go to the _Amaya_Website_ and get the necessary software.") A link that just says "Amaya" could be an internal or external link, and even if it's clear from context that the purpose of following the link is to download Amaya (rather than, for example, read more about it), it's not clear whether it's a direct link to the file or a link to the download page.
- hammock 1y ago
  The internal vs external link has already been solved by the little icon that Wikipedia et al use
- xixixao 1y ago
  I like to include icons to indicate whether the destination is external or a file (file extension could work for files too)
  - cluckindan 1y ago
    Icons do nothing for screen readers, though. Use aria-describedby or aria-labelledby to add an ”external link” text suffix to the link text. Note that aria-label does not work properly in all cases, e.g. when the browser chrome uses a different language than the site itself.
Aardwolf 1y ago
In the example "Get Amaya!" that they give: Now that I paste it in this HN comment, the link is gone. If it had said "To get Amaya, click here!" at least you could have seen from the context that it used to be a link. There's also no explanation in it for why making a verb a link would be bad while nouns are ok.
bravesoul2 1y ago
Feels like REST. Use nouns for the path (like the link text)
racl101 1y ago
# This is a loop that runs n number of times
xyst 1y ago
I suppose the reason this is posted here: `contributed Sep 2001 by Aaron Swartz` Wild to see how much this person contributed to the open web we use today. I think the most notable example was RSS? It’s a shame that rss feeds have been nuked from existence.
2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago
Clickable hyperlinks are considered harmful IMO
ogou 1y ago
These are good recommendations from a usability and accessibility standpoint. But, marketing managers will bulldoze over all of it. These links are also Calls To Action in the marketing world. They will choose the most clicked version, which is usually the most simplistic and obvious. Many years of A/B/n testing has shown this to be true.
- txdv 1y ago
  click here to subscribe
- WickyNilliams 1y ago
  A compromise is to add visually hidden text to supplement, or use aria-label to override the accessible name of the link
- iammrpayments 1y ago
  This. I’d never do this on a landing page it would cause a lot of lost sales.
smjburton 1y ago
Another benefit of using text other than "click here" is that it's helpful for web crawlers too. Google, Bing, and other crawlers use link context (e.g. "lawn care in new jersey" vs "click here") to establish authority/relevance for the site being linked to. The closer the context of the link, the more authority a website (generally) gets for that topic.
nikolayasdf123 1y ago
I am found of Apple content design has "Learn more..." links at the end of paragraphs. Those look very consistent and look well
ashleyn 1y ago
Back in the days when Google was still driven largely by Pagerank, I remember googling the phrase "click here" for shits and giggles. The top links were for Flash player, Silverlight, and Java. Meaning that these were the most common links for the text "click here" - i.e. "Need Flash? Click here." Relic of a dark age where nothing was accessible and the performance didn't matter.
guhcampos 1y ago
Maybe it's because I'm old, but I have always instinctivelly thought of links as pointing to to nouns: links point to a place, and that place has a name, not a verb, maybe an adjective. So links to my website are fine, while links to my website are inherently not. I also have a strong pet peeve around imperative tone, so I'd never write something like go to my website or follow this link.
- rehevkor5 1y ago
  Imperative would be appropriate for things like tutorials and howto pages.
- rdiddly 1y ago
  Makes sense to me, maybe I'm old too. Although things get murky when the link kicks off an action like downloading something. But it's still a noun if you think of it as "a download" or "a downloader."
afandian 1y ago
This advice distinguishes between the form (a link or button) and the content. I think it makes sense because you had other ways of knowing that it's a link than the content (underline, blue text, button border). I guess this was written at a time when CSS was used relatively conservatively and, whatever the label of the button or link, it was clear you could click on it. Somehow the current UX trend is to remove those underlines and boxes. I'm not sure how people are meant to intuit that something is clickable _except_ for the label.
nlawalker 1y ago
Somewhat related suggestion for other media like emails, docs, and chats: Ctrl-K is the almost-universal shortcut for “insert hyperlink”, which is strongly preferred by everyone to a 237-character Sharepoint URL.
crazygringo 1y ago
I couldn't disagree more. Their "bad" example: > To download W3C's editor/browser Amaya, _click here_. Is extraordinarily clear. I'll click the link and it will either download directly, or it will be a download page. In contrast: > Get _Amaya_! That suggests a link to the Amaya website, not a download page. That's not effective for a download. Similarly: > Tell me more about _Amaya_: W3C's free editor/browser that lets you create _HTML_, _SVG_, and _MathML_ documents. This is terrible. It's not about downloading, and "tell me more" is the command, but not linked! For all I know, the "Amaya" link goes to a corporate landing page, not the "tell me more" information I actually need. The conventional uses on the web are totally fine: > To download W3C's editor/browser Amaya, _click here_. > _Download Amaya_, the W3C's editor/browser. The idea that links shouldn't be verbs seems very silly to me. Links should absolutely be verbs, when they involve an action like downloading or finding out more. Obviously that's different from "reference" links like in Wikipedia, where you're finding more about a topic. And "click here" makes it exceptionally clear that a link isn't merely a reference link, but an action link. When I see: > Get _Amaya_! That... doesn't tell me how to get Amaya. That tells me "Amaya" is a reference link, not a download link.
- kqr 1y ago
  I strongly dislike "click here" links because when I'm looking for a link, I want to read only the link-formatted words on a page to find the link I'm interested in. "Download Amaya" would be a great link. Just "Amaya" (unless leading to a page with information about Amaya, I suppose) or "click here" are not.
  - a3w 1y ago
    I often want a second source to first check if that is trustworthy: copy paste amaya while having to not accidentally click it is annoying, since often linebreaks and multiword names or company+product splits occur. Selecting and reading text should be easy. Navigating HTML should be wanted, not accidental. Therefore, the ``click here'' works best for me. PS - "_Get Amaya_" should start a file transfer. - "Get _amaya_ over there!" sounds like "okay next site will be info dump before actual download", which is acceptable to gather trust like brand or imprint recognition over there instead of googling now.
kevinsync 1y ago
My stomach is churning already knowing I'm about to type a short-sighted hot take related to LLMs, but I do wonder what a screen reader would look like that could provide a "summarized" version of any given web page (assumingly via LLM). Basically allow the user to swap between the full page rendered with current methodology / presentation of content and links, and a version of the same page with a summarized version of the text content + a collated, deduped section of actions found in the content. ex. To download W3C's editor/browser Amaya, [click here]. [Download Amaya] [Click here] to get Amaya for Windows All collapse into something singular and sensible like [Download Amaya installer for Windows here] as an action inside the action section. I don't know. I should probably put on a sleeping mask and navigate the web via a screen reader one of these days to really experience how things are.
- lillecarl 1y ago
  When we can run our own models that are good enough on local hardware (practically) it'll really take off, I believe AI accelerators in end user electronics will revolutionize how we utilize computers. > I don't know. I should probably put on a sleeping mask and navigate the web via a screen reader one of these days to really experience how things are. The difference is that it wouldn't be like experiencing it through a screen reader, it'd be like experiencing it with a screen reader that you can't use and will never be motivated enough to learn. Some blind people are known to listen to code in "reading speed" which is pretty incredible. You'd be like standing on skis for the first time, or using Vim
orthoxerox 1y ago
It's not the best option for "action" hyperlinks, but I prefer it to making them look just like "information" hyperlinks. For example, you have a page about... unemployment benefits. It has some body text that contains hyperlinks to other pages of the website, but at the end is has standalone paragraphs that say, "Click here to check your eligibility and apply online" and "Click here to log into the benefits portal". "Click here" identifies the things you are the most likely to do if you visit this page. This is much easier than scanning the body text for "the _residents_ of the _state_ can _apply online_ to sign up for unemployment benefits". It's not the best option, an even better option it to pull out all "action" links into a separate panel, so it is typographically distinct from the rest of the page. Then the links can just say "check your eligibility and apply for benefits" and "log into the benefits portal".
t1234s 1y ago
If you find you are having to put instructions in your UI like "click here" you may have to rethink it to be more obvious. You don't want make your users have to think.
seydor 1y ago
"click here" links convert well, so people will use them
johnisgood 1y ago
> To download W3C's editor/browser Amaya, click here. "click here" should be a direct link to the latest version. You click on it, it should download the latest version.
mmaunder 1y ago
Ah I remember this when it came out. At the time the web was rife with click-here links. This had a huge effect on solving the problem. Might have appeared on Slashdot.
WiFiMap 1y ago
[dead]
seanwilson 1y ago
It's worth emphasising that if something like "learn more" does work fine for non-screen-readers (like for a call-to-action button at the end of a section, which makes sense to me), you can add extra text just for screen readers so it reads something like "Learn more _about Amaya_" only on screen readers (via aria-label or a CSS class that hides text). There's also SEO benefits here as well because the more descriptive text helps search engines understand what search keywords might be relevant for the page being linked to.
jfax 1y ago
I'm reminded of this post I read regarding links that read "I forgot my password". I thought maybe wording it as "click here if..." would improve that but I somehow intuitively knew that's not right either. > Ignoring the garbage on Web pages is a skill that some people don't have, and I don't know how to teach it. I'm reminded of this each time I try to help someone who doesn't have my background, use the Web; there are users who look at the literally first thing on the page and think about it carefully, even if it's "Please enable notifications," before they see the second item on the page at all. > With Google searches now offering multiple screenfulls of garbage before the actual results, well. > A related issue is failing to understand the epistemic status of different kinds of text on a page. E.g. the user who sees a clickable link with the text "I forgot my password" and believes that that means it's telling him he did forget his password (and it somehow knows this?), rather than just being the place to click if he forgot his password. > The death of UI standardization, of course, makes this issue much worse. https://mstdn.io/@mattskala/113188291223682980 https://mstdn.io/@mattskala/113188291223682980
- wvenable 1y ago
  If "I forgot my password" is visibly a button then it's more effective than a link in that context. I remember when Microsoft removed many buttons from their UI and replaced them with vaguely colored text (links) and it became a lot harder to figure out what to click on.
  - mitchdoogle 1y ago
    I would go for a verb that matches what the user actually is doing, i.e. "Reset Password". Also, I think a panel with a red or yellow background coming up after a couple of unsuccessful attempts to login with a complete sentence, "If you have forgotten your password, please visit this link to reset your password"
- xenadu02 1y ago
  We should remember that UI conventions are mostly an arbitrary invention or are derivations of prior arbitrary inventions. Users intuitively adapt themselves to the machine and developers adapt themselves to the users forming a feedback loop. To put it another way: the meaning of language has probably been changed by so many websites and apps having an "I forgot my password" link. At least in that context most humans will adapt to understand the intent. Newer generations that have known nothing else won't even consider it to be worth their notice. In that sense there is also value in sticking to convention even if the convention makes no sense when considered in isolation.
ChrisArchitect 1y ago
A related site/discussion last October: Don't use "click here" for link text https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41925658 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41925658
smallerize 1y ago
Dragan Espenschied (despens) has an essay from 2022 about how link text has changed over time https://despens.systems/2022/06/button-pushes-you/ https://despens.systems/2022/06/button-pushes-you/ He identifies a shift from a call-to-action to button text describing the user: "Instead, they’re supposed to reconfigure the user’s state. Users have to accept the spelled out mantra and change their attitude before accessing the next piece of information."
pacifika 1y ago
This is a well researched areas with subject experts, our opinion is large irrelevant.
yard2010 1y ago
Remember when googling "click here" led to the acrobat reader download page? I member!
sherburt3 1y ago
Always annoys me when people attempt to frame their personal preferences as a codified rule rather than a recommendation. All the examples seem fine with some being marginally better than others.
bitwize 1y ago
It's 2025. HTML is, first and foremost, a GUI toolkit. People have forgotten how hypertext works. You want to see what good hypertext looks like? Check out: https://www.zetatalk.com https://www.zetatalk.com This lady has been promulgating her own brand of UFO kookery since the 90s, always in this same beautiful format. Nicely flowing prose, with only the relevant words turned into a link to delve further into the topic. Wikimedia also has very good practices. But whenever I get depressed about the state of webshit, I glance back at ZetaTalk, a product of a different era, when hypertext was exciting, "surfing the web" to explore topics was a fun pastime, and anyone could put virtually anything they wanted online.
lucaspauker 1y ago
This seems like dogma
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
theletterf 1y ago
A similar a11y battle is positional language, for example" "The image below" is positional language that might not mean anything to visually impaired users or folks using different layouts.
swyx 1y ago
alternative proposal for 2025 update: Don't use "get started" as button text
iLoveOncall 1y ago
They don't take their own (bad) advice. They have a "Learn more" link on their homepage: https://www.w3.org/QA/IG/ https://www.w3.org/QA/IG/ Anyway, I've learned long ago to ignore UI and UX advice coming from websites that look like theirs.
_Yguy_ 1y ago
But... why?
briandilley 1y ago
None of this matters, considering that "click here" converts better by a long shot.
- lysace 1y ago
  Got any data on that?
ivanjermakov 1y ago
Linking manual for Wikipedia pages: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Linking https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Li...
DonHopkins 1y ago
...Unless you are linking to a discussion about how you should not use "click here" as link text.
DonHopkins 1y ago
As ClickOps is to DevOps, ClickSplaining is to ManSplaining. Nobody appreciates being talked down to with "click here" as if they can't figure out how to follow a link.
jrappswe 1y ago
Dumbest shit ever, in the case of a download, it SHOULD mention the word “download” in the actual link
neuroelectron 1y ago
"2001"
drellybochelly 1y ago
It's a reasonable CTA for simple cases, but definitely makes assumptions and presupposes a bit.
rednafi 1y ago
I’m reading the comments and thinking: only the HN crowd could get so worked up about something so trivial.
Animats 1y ago
"If you want to call your reader to action..." This article is from a marketing perspective. It assumes that the goal of the web site is to get the user to click on the link. Not to offer the user the opportunity to get more detailed info if they want it.
- einpoklum 1y ago
  You don't have to be marketing anything. When putting links in a website, you are calling the visitor to action - the action of viewing other content or getting a file.
darqis 1y ago
The times when this was relevant are long past
wolpoli 1y ago
Articles in the 90s would suggest webmasters to use "click here" as link text to let users know that a hyperlink is clickable. The advice kind of make sense since hypertext was new back then and users need that little bit of help to navigate.
jcims 1y ago
I remember this, it stuck in my head and I never did it again. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
karaterobot 1y ago
Keep doing whatever you've been doing for the last 24 years, it's fine.
theendisney 1y ago
But my website is called go-here.nl
zzo38computer 1y ago
I mostly agree with the descriptions described there. However, sometimes a verb or verb phrase is appropriate, especially if it is "download", but then it should be a direct download link; the verb should be directly what it corresponds to and should make sense it context. Often a verb phrase would not be appropriate, though.
eightnoneone 1y ago
This is the internet hill I'll likely die on. A call-to-action is one thing, but a page that only links the word "here" is a hard fail of an author not understanding the hypertext medium. I think of "click here" as stage direction mistakenly left in. When most authors write, they often don't write in a hypertext context. Instead of using a Markdown-like notation for links, they default to stage direction.
paulschreiber 1y ago
People are _still_ doing this shit. Unsubscribe links. Official government site. Fucking terrible.
mgdev 1y ago
Local LLMs will solve this.
unixhero 1y ago
I still use "Click here" in corporate america
- ghushn3 1y ago
  Consider not. There are many accessibility reasons to not, and corporate america has screen reader users in it too.
rs186 1y ago
I don't see any concern of accessibility in the article, and to my knowledge there is no accessibility issue in any of the examples. So who is w3 to say how people should and shouldn't use links? All that I see are just opinions, with no objective metrics/theories to back up their recommendations. W3 should be in the business of setting up technical standards that go through rigorous processes, not creating nonsense like this.

Lindby 1y ago

[flagged]

Cthulhu_ 1y ago
It's aimed at web developers and content authors who have never used a screen reader.

stogot 1y ago

I actually prefer what they don’t recommend, and I don’t know why

chungy 1y ago
Same here. This is just a style guideline that W3C has no real business in determining.
- sham1 1y ago
  Well good thing that this style guide is just what W3C considers best practices and is not a standard. > While the tips are carefully reviewed by the participants of the group, they should not be seen as anything else than informative bits of wisdom, and especially, they are not normative W3C technical specifications.
- hombre_fatal 1y ago
  We shouldn't be so sensitive. > [Our published tips] should not be seen as anything else than informative bits of wisdom, and especially, they are not normative W3C technical specifications.
  - rs186 1y ago
    Then they shouldn't be publishing "tips" in the first place. I'd very much like to see resources put in more meaningful things, like, drafting standards.
lionkor 1y ago
Me, too. The way they recommend feels like a "link to a Wikipedia article", not a call to action
- matusp 1y ago
  Yeah, Wikipedia, but also many news sites use this style. It is mostly not a call to action, but additional optional information you can check out. That's why it feels wrong to use it in these cases. I think that some of the examples are outdated compared to how people format the web nowadays.
mannykannot 1y ago
I do too - it tells the reader what they have to do in order to bring about the desired result, more directly than do any of the alternatives.

kleiba 1y ago

I remember that I often got confused in the early days of Wikipedia because the way they use link text was different from what was common on the web back in the day.

ceejayoz 1y ago

I used to make websites for internal use at a hospital by docs. “Click here” is just the start. Bold, red, and blinking. People barely read, let alone process what they’re reading. “Click here” is at least simple.

cyanydeez 1y ago
[flagged]
- Uracnt 1y ago
  [dead]

JadeNB 1y ago

One reason they omit is that, by default, bookmark text is (was? I hardly bookmark any more) the text of the link. So, if you don't curate your bookmarks carefully, you get a folder full of bookmarks called "Click here!"

xnx 1y ago
> bookmark text is (was? I hardly bookmark any more) the text of the link I'm not sure I've seen this behavior. More commonly, it is the <title> of the page.
- Cthulhu_ 1y ago
  Based on the comment I'd expect an "add link to bookmarks" entry in the right click context menu, but I don't remember ever seeing it. It makes sense to use the link text in that case though, else the browser would have to access the underlying webpage to fetch the title. Which shouldn't be a problem, but at one point some web apps were broken and did destructive actions on GET requests, and Google Gears tried to optimize the internet by prefetching webpages... which caused some whoopsies. But, thankfully, web developers and web technology improved since then.
  - JadeNB 1y ago
    > Based on the comment I'd expect an "add link to bookmarks" entry in the right click context menu, but I don't remember ever seeing it. I just checked, and desktop Firefox still offers it. At least, version 138 on macOS does.
    - 1718627440 1y ago
      There are browser, that lack basic features like bookmarking links?
      - JadeNB 1y ago
        I couldn't figure out how to do it on mobile Firefox, though I couldn't swear it's not possible. I didn't do a survey of others.

scary-size 1y ago

The UK's Government Digital Services make a similar recommendation [1] in their accessibility guidelines. [1] https://design.homeoffice.gov.uk/accessibility/links https://design.homeoffice.gov.uk/accessibility/links

rerdavies 1y ago
Their recommendation is very different. W3c says: Get *Amaya* Read more about *Amaya* The home office says: *Get Amaya* *Read more about Amaya* which seems much more sensible, but suffers from a different problem when used in context. Personally, I think both are confounding two different use cases. Links are often used inline in text. The use case that W3c and the Home Office are addressing are use cases that would be better address by out-of-line buttons: [Download] [Documentation] But both seem broken when the use case is hyperlinks in inline text. To use a concrete example, how should one rewrite the following? PiPedal is a guitar effects pedal that runs on Raspberry Pi. To download PiPedal, *click here*. To read the documentation, *click here*. I get the objection. But the fix seems unacceptable: PiPedal is a guitar effects pedal that runs on Raspberry Pi. Get Pipedal. Read the documentation. Nuh uh. Not happening. I'm not sure what you would call that. Meta-grammatically incorrect? Whatever it is, it is not idiomatic English. Pipedal is a guitar effects pedal that runs on Raspberry Pi. To download PiPedal, visit the *Download Page*. To learn more about Pipedal, view the *Documentation*. Perhaps. That is the actual text I used in my documentation. But, speaking from personal experience, the challenge is that it is often very difficult to nounify "click here" Ubuntu Server installs don't suffer from this problem; but before choosing an Ubuntu Server install, you should read the *Ubuntu Server* section of the "Installing on Ubuntu" page. Which makes one wonder, what exactly is the foul that's being committed when "here" is used as a pronoun for the content that's being referenced? In this use case, there is not an actual accessibility issue, because the the link sits inline within a sentence that provides all the context that's necessary to indicate what to expect when you click. And in the very first example given, the text is from a lede in a web page where concision matters. To download PiPedal, click *here*. Is that really an accessibility issue? particularly when there's are buttons right above it that say [ Download ] [ Documentation ] The actual metric that counts here is: how many times will people visit the Download page? And from that perspective there is significant doubt in my mind as to whether the following text will be better. To download PiPedal, visit the *Download Page*.

baggachipz 1y ago

Counterpoint to the other opinions so far: I feel like a link should be used for more information retrieval; therefore, the link should be descriptive of its forthcoming content. Instead of using a link as a call to action, shouldn't it be a button? This feels more "pure" in the semantic web context.

Cthulhu_ 1y ago
For sure; as other commenters pointed out that "click here" is unnecessary, as you can assume people know how links work. That is, it's not a call to action, unless the CTA is to "read more" about something or to "go to" a download page. But the action is to navigate, nothing more. If the action is to do something else, like start a download or submit a form, it should be a button. Of course, a download on the internet is usually a link to a file, which the browser decides how to handle - open or download. From an internet purist point of view, a link to download a file also makes sense.

jxjnskkzxxhx 1y ago

Exactly what is wrong about "to do XYZ click here"?

alabhyajindal 1y ago
From the suggestion email¹: > "Click here" assumes everyone has a computer and mouse. And it's not even needed: most users of the Web understand how to follow links. 1. https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa/2001Sep/0007.html https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa/2001Sep/0007.htm...
- jxjnskkzxxhx 1y ago
  Sounds equivalent to saying we shouldnt the words "he" or "she" because some people identify with neither. Exclusionary towards people of different mouse abilities.
  - jxjnskkzxxhx 1y ago
    Towards differently abled devices would've been funnier wording.
micromacrofoot 1y ago
it's a little pedantic, but hyperlinks should describe what you get when you click on them not "<a>click here</a> to read more about dogs" but "read more in our <a>article about dogs</a>" imagine not being able to see and tabbing through a series of "click here"s
jaas 1y ago
The idea is that some people don’t click - that refers mainly to people using a mouse, and many people are not using a mouse. So it is overstating information about what to do.

robin_reala 1y ago

If you think about this from an accessibility point of view, screen readers for blind users present a linear view of a page. To escape from the linear view, they also typically allow users to access lists of elements like headers and links, out of context of their original position. If every link is labelled “click here” then you’re effectively removing non-linear access from those users.

rerdavies 1y ago
Sure. but who labels every link in there header as "click here"? A completely different use-case from inline hyperlinks.
charcircuit 1y ago
A screen reader should be smart enough to read out what the link is for.
- hombre_fatal 1y ago
  How do you imagine that working? By reading surrounding text or by reading the URL? Those are worse experiences than descriptive anchor text. You can use something like macOS VoiceOver right now to see how it behaves.
  - charcircuit 1y ago
    >By reading surrounding text Yes, or it can summarize the text and explain what the link is to.
    - bluGill 1y ago
      LLMs attempt that, but their success is mixed - sometimes the summary is very bad.
    - DrewADesign 1y ago
      Imagine how long it would take to load a page of HN search results, or the table of contents of an online book, or a page with a lot of dead links, or a page with links to a whole bunch of non-textual content that it has to figure out is non-textual.

rerdavies 1y ago

This seems inelegant: Get *Amaya*. Tell me more about *Amaya*.

pooloo 1y ago
Inelegant was the state of the Internet back then, I loved it.
xp84 1y ago
Okay, but why not “Learn [More about Amaya]” ? More about Amaya is a noun phrase so it fits their standard.
- rerdavies 1y ago
  My specific point of discomfort is that imperatives may be fine in menus, and lists, and buttons (where "click here" is never going to happen anyway). But as an inline hyperlink they seem idiomatically incorrect. "Learn more about Amaya" is still an imperative sentence. I guess technically, "To learn more about Amaya, view the datasheet." is also an imperative sentence. But to my mind, it scans better as inline text. Not quite sure how to nounify that one either. And interestingly, inability to find the "learn more about" link on landing pages for products I'm interested in is a source of constant frustration for me. There should be a word for "something halfway between the the breathless lede on a landing page, and "here's a thousand pages of documentation". For hardware products, the "datasheet" is exactly what I'm looking for; there doesn't seem to be an equivalent for software products.

piqufoh 1y ago

From the bottom of the page; > contributed Sep 2001 by Aaron Swartz Thoughts -- this advice is 24 years old (and I think largely ignored) -- Aaron Swartz (!)

piqufoh 1y ago
Aaron's suggestion (which seems to have been lost?) "Click here" assumes everyone has a computer and mouse. And it's not even needed: most users of the Web understand how to follow links.
- xnx 1y ago
  > most users of the Web understand how to follow links. Often very hard to tell what's a link when it's not underlined and non-blue colors (or no color) is used.
  - jkestner 1y ago
    And Nielsen had plenty to say about that too.
    - xnx 1y ago
      Indeed. Craigslist seems to be about the only site out there that hasn't fallen for every dumb design fad of the past 30 years.
  - nemomarx 1y ago
    you shouldn't make things a link without decorations tbh when hn could use a more distinct style for it
  - rezonant 1y ago
    Which is also inaccessible (and goes against WCAG [1]) [1] https://webaim.org/blog/wcag-2-0-and-link-colors/ https://webaim.org/blog/wcag-2-0-and-link-colors/
- netsharc 1y ago

fkyoureadthedoc 1y ago

Assuming that all their examples are consistent and actually download "Amaya", I'd prefer simply the hyperlink [Download Amaya](http://link-to-file http://link-to-file). Preferably with a download icon to indicate that it's going to be the actual file and not just a link to another page with the real download button hidden among 4 ads that are just download buttons.

fortran77 1y ago

I’m going to download Amaya now!

bravesoul2 1y ago
Click here!

scosman 1y ago

Lighthouse also warns against generic link text, like “Learn More”. It’s one of the few lighthouse warnings I just ignore.

Cthulhu_ 1y ago
In which case you ignore people with screen readers and search engines, too.
- thesuitonym 1y ago
  Learn more is perfectly descriptive for people with screen readers.
  - scosman 1y ago
    And combined with resulting page, perfectly descriptive for search engines.
mrweasel 1y ago
How about changing the text ever so slightly, so rather than just "Learn More" it's "Learn move about X"?
- carlosjobim 1y ago
  Consider a product listings page, with a "Buy" button/link next to every product. Should those links be changed to differ from each other? Google Lighthouse sure thinks so, so it's better ignored.
  - mrweasel 1y ago
    Fair point, no you're right that would be a bit silly to have "Buy X" instead of just "Buy". I would argue that that's the label of a button, not a link though.
    - 1y ago

bArray 1y ago

I disagree. I think we need to make it clear that following hyperlinks should always be a cognitive choice. > To download W3C's editor/browser Amaya, [click here]. This gives you an option, where multiple options may be available. > To download Amaya, go to the [Amaya Website] and get the necessary software. This is even better, as 'click here' assumes the input device. > Get [Amaya]! Whilst being simpler, it does not make clear that the action is optional. Whether I click something may require some additional information around the link, for example: > To download W3C's free editor/browser Amaya, go to the [Amaya Website] and select the latest version on the home page. Now I know that it's free, and I have instructions to carry out to find what I'm looking for.

Cthulhu_ 1y ago
This is very much from a sighted person's point of view. When you use screen readers, you can switch to a 'links' navigation mode and only go through links, in which case all you'd hear would be "click here", "Amaya website" and "Amaya". See also https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/link-purpose-in-context.html https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/link-purpose-in-..., also keeping in mind that since June, the underlying WCAG guideline is a EU-wide legal requirement for company websites.
- tempfile 1y ago
  I don't think this is right. The WCAG allows for "programmatically determined link context" which includes text surrounding the actual link. "click here" is bad but "Amaya website" or "Amaya" are fine. e.g. from the WCAG examples you link to: > An account registration page requires successful completion of a [Turing test](https://www.w3.org/TR/turingtest/ https://www.w3.org/TR/turingtest/) before the registration form can be accessed.
- bArray 1y ago
  > This is very much from a sighted person's point of view. When you use screen readers, you can switch to a 'links' navigation mode and only go through links, in which case all you'd hear would be "click here", "Amaya website" and "Amaya". I think this is a UX problem with screen readers, and actually probably something LLMs might massively help with. If I was designing something for screen readers, I would probably have interactive elements within a context window, i.e.: <context>To download W3C's free editor/browser Amaya, go to the <a href="..">Amaya Website</a> and select the latest version on the home page.</context> The user would hear "Amaya Website" and would then have some ability to also hear the link context. For pages missing the context windows some attempt could be made to create one automatically. > See also https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/link-purpose-in-context.html https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/link-purpose-in-... , also keeping in mind that since June, the underlying WCAG guideline is a EU-wide legal requirement for company websites. On this page itself, within the box "Success Criterion (SC)" the listener would hear "purpose of each link", "programmatically determined link context", "ambiguous to users in general". The last one is, well, ambiguous to users in general. Even as a sighted person, without selecting it, I wouldn't know what it is actually going to link to. I would say that the web is generally actively hostile towards screen readers, and not because of a lack of WCAG adoption. You have text in images (not just static, but also GIFs), JS heavy components, delayed loading, dependant interactions (such as captchas, navigation drop downs, etc), infinite scrolling - the list just goes on. The web is primary a highly visual space and likely will remain so. I don't think the EU's accessibility act is actually enforceable [1]. Unlike cookies, some of the changes required are massive, to the point where it may not even be worth existing in the EU market if it's enforced. > Incorporating captions into video content, as well as providing audio descriptions and transcripts Even proving you are compliant is a lot of cost, which includes audits and training staff. You can always trust the EU to regulate itself out of being competitive. [1] https://www.wcag.com/compliance/european-accessibility-act/ https://www.wcag.com/compliance/european-accessibility-act/

1970-01-01 1y ago

W3C missed the biggest problems (IMHO) with "click here" * It's only 10 char and much too short for someone to click when it's inline with other links. Let's not mention text squirming around the screen via molasses JS, kicking your text up, down, and around the screen for several seconds before those short 10 chars finally become stationary. * With high resolution touch screens, you're maybe 80% accurate on actually clicking right there. Again, my accuracy is my fat finger, and nearby links are just UI landmines.

layer8 1y ago
If a 10-character text link poses significant problems to be actuated, then something is really wrong with either the browser or the web page, not with the fact of having a 10-character link.
thesuitonym 1y ago
> It's only 10 char and much too short for someone to click when it's inline with other links. Let's not mention text squirming around the screen via molasses JS, kicking your text up, down, and around the screen for several seconds before those short 10 chars finally become stationary. That was much less of a problem in 2010, and either way not really something for the size of your hyperlink to fix.
kerblang 1y ago
Aye! Big fat isolated links win it for me. Can barely use touchscreens. Even with a mouse I am somewhat handicapped. The world has no sympathy. We need some kind of medical condition like "Slob Syndrome" to shame & guilt people with.

jasonlfunk 1y ago

The verb seems pretty important to me… ————- Learn more about [the browser] Never hear about [the browser] again Those links will do very different things.

dsr_ 1y ago

_Tell me more about Amaya_ is preferable to any shorter link. If, somehow, you have multiple links in a sentence, see if you can manage a word or two of unlinked text in between, or, better yet, stop being pretentious and focus on usefulness. Not: _You can run web browsers,_ _spreadsheets_ or _drawing software._ You can run: * _web browsers_ * _spreadsheets_ * _drawing software_

Mordisquitos 1y ago
> _Tell me more about Amaya_ > is preferable to any shorter link. I agree, but my reasoning is not about length but about semantics. The 'Tell me more about' part carries meaningful intention and makes no sense without the link, so it should be part of the link together with 'Amaya'. If on the other hand the example sentence was, say, 'You may be interested in Amaya: W3C's free editor/browser...' I would agree that the link should be limited to 'Amaya'—the meaning carried by the 'You may be interested in' part is tangential to the hyperlink.

0xbadcafebee 1y ago

I like it when pages tell me to "click here". It is clear and direct communication that doesn't assume I will infer exactly where I'm supposed to click for what thing. Not everyone sees or intuitively understands things the same way you do.

eCa 1y ago
> Not everyone sees or intuitively understands things the same way you do. That is true. And some people don’t see.
- 0xbadcafebee 1y ago
  I'm fully aware. I grew up with a kid who was almost blind. Images can contain alt text metadata, but links can't. Why? Because some genius with an opinion decided links aren't allowed to have alt-text. The rationale for why links can't contain alt-text: Using alt text on a hyperlink would be redundant and potentially confusing for screen reader users, who may hear both the hyperlink text and the alt text Except we see here a great example of why this is wrong. We could tell a sighted user to click here, and simultaneously add alt-text that describes "this is a hyperlink which downloads the software". (which, by the way, would also help sighted people!!) An author drafting the link could choose what text is shown for the link, and what (if any) is shown for the alt-text. It doesn't have to be confusing. Yet with the current mandatory design examples, it is confusing! The suggested link text is just the name of the product!! What's the link going to do when you click it? Download something? Render a page? Show an image? Something else? How is that helping a blind person OR a non-blind person?! The spec should allow you to decide how the content is presented, in a way that works for both blind and non-blind people. But we see here that, in order to make a "beautiful engineering design" that supports blind and sighted people, it's actually making it harder for both. If they took away their arbitrary restriction, the content creator could be free to craft it however makes sense, in a way that supports all people well, rather than all people poorly.
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guerrilla 1y ago

Okay but it doesn't say why. Why should one leave verbs out?

latexr 1y ago

The rule I follow is to write in a way that if all links were removed, it would still make sense. So “click here” never happens, because you can’t click text which isn’t a link. With that singular idea in mind, everything else falls into place naturally.

flessner 1y ago

I get it that "click here" is not descriptive, but so is simply linking "Amaya". What is it? A person? A fruit? People don't read websites linearly, in the best case they skim read all the buttons and links. I personally would include the verb as it gives important context and is a clearer CTA for the "skimmers". Amaya is W3C's... "Download Amaya"!

retsibsi 1y ago

Personally, I prefer the second example that they advise against. ("To download Amaya, go to the _Amaya_Website_ and get the necessary software.") A link that just says "Amaya" could be an internal or external link, and even if it's clear from context that the purpose of following the link is to download Amaya (rather than, for example, read more about it), it's not clear whether it's a direct link to the file or a link to the download page.

hammock 1y ago
The internal vs external link has already been solved by the little icon that Wikipedia et al use
xixixao 1y ago
I like to include icons to indicate whether the destination is external or a file (file extension could work for files too)
- cluckindan 1y ago
  Icons do nothing for screen readers, though. Use aria-describedby or aria-labelledby to add an ”external link” text suffix to the link text. Note that aria-label does not work properly in all cases, e.g. when the browser chrome uses a different language than the site itself.

Aardwolf 1y ago

In the example "Get Amaya!" that they give: Now that I paste it in this HN comment, the link is gone. If it had said "To get Amaya, click here!" at least you could have seen from the context that it used to be a link. There's also no explanation in it for why making a verb a link would be bad while nouns are ok.

bravesoul2 1y ago

Feels like REST. Use nouns for the path (like the link text)

racl101 1y ago

# This is a loop that runs n number of times

xyst 1y ago

I suppose the reason this is posted here: `contributed Sep 2001 by Aaron Swartz` Wild to see how much this person contributed to the open web we use today. I think the most notable example was RSS? It’s a shame that rss feeds have been nuked from existence.

2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago

Clickable hyperlinks are considered harmful IMO

ogou 1y ago

These are good recommendations from a usability and accessibility standpoint. But, marketing managers will bulldoze over all of it. These links are also Calls To Action in the marketing world. They will choose the most clicked version, which is usually the most simplistic and obvious. Many years of A/B/n testing has shown this to be true.

txdv 1y ago
click here to subscribe
WickyNilliams 1y ago
A compromise is to add visually hidden text to supplement, or use aria-label to override the accessible name of the link
iammrpayments 1y ago
This. I’d never do this on a landing page it would cause a lot of lost sales.

smjburton 1y ago

Another benefit of using text other than "click here" is that it's helpful for web crawlers too. Google, Bing, and other crawlers use link context (e.g. "lawn care in new jersey" vs "click here") to establish authority/relevance for the site being linked to. The closer the context of the link, the more authority a website (generally) gets for that topic.

nikolayasdf123 1y ago

I am found of Apple content design has "Learn more..." links at the end of paragraphs. Those look very consistent and look well

ashleyn 1y ago

Back in the days when Google was still driven largely by Pagerank, I remember googling the phrase "click here" for shits and giggles. The top links were for Flash player, Silverlight, and Java. Meaning that these were the most common links for the text "click here" - i.e. "Need Flash? Click here." Relic of a dark age where nothing was accessible and the performance didn't matter.

guhcampos 1y ago

Maybe it's because I'm old, but I have always instinctivelly thought of links as pointing to to nouns: links point to a place, and that place has a name, not a verb, maybe an adjective. So links to my website are fine, while links to my website are inherently not. I also have a strong pet peeve around imperative tone, so I'd never write something like go to my website or follow this link.

rehevkor5 1y ago
Imperative would be appropriate for things like tutorials and howto pages.
rdiddly 1y ago
Makes sense to me, maybe I'm old too. Although things get murky when the link kicks off an action like downloading something. But it's still a noun if you think of it as "a download" or "a downloader."

afandian 1y ago

This advice distinguishes between the form (a link or button) and the content. I think it makes sense because you had other ways of knowing that it's a link than the content (underline, blue text, button border). I guess this was written at a time when CSS was used relatively conservatively and, whatever the label of the button or link, it was clear you could click on it. Somehow the current UX trend is to remove those underlines and boxes. I'm not sure how people are meant to intuit that something is clickable _except_ for the label.

nlawalker 1y ago

Somewhat related suggestion for other media like emails, docs, and chats: Ctrl-K is the almost-universal shortcut for “insert hyperlink”, which is strongly preferred by everyone to a 237-character Sharepoint URL.

crazygringo 1y ago

I couldn't disagree more. Their "bad" example: > To download W3C's editor/browser Amaya, _click here_. Is extraordinarily clear. I'll click the link and it will either download directly, or it will be a download page. In contrast: > Get _Amaya_! That suggests a link to the Amaya website, not a download page. That's not effective for a download. Similarly: > Tell me more about _Amaya_: W3C's free editor/browser that lets you create _HTML_, _SVG_, and _MathML_ documents. This is terrible. It's not about downloading, and "tell me more" is the command, but not linked! For all I know, the "Amaya" link goes to a corporate landing page, not the "tell me more" information I actually need. The conventional uses on the web are totally fine: > To download W3C's editor/browser Amaya, _click here_. > _Download Amaya_, the W3C's editor/browser. The idea that links shouldn't be verbs seems very silly to me. Links should absolutely be verbs, when they involve an action like downloading or finding out more. Obviously that's different from "reference" links like in Wikipedia, where you're finding more about a topic. And "click here" makes it exceptionally clear that a link isn't merely a reference link, but an action link. When I see: > Get _Amaya_! That... doesn't tell me how to get Amaya. That tells me "Amaya" is a reference link, not a download link.

kqr 1y ago
I strongly dislike "click here" links because when I'm looking for a link, I want to read only the link-formatted words on a page to find the link I'm interested in. "Download Amaya" would be a great link. Just "Amaya" (unless leading to a page with information about Amaya, I suppose) or "click here" are not.
- a3w 1y ago
  I often want a second source to first check if that is trustworthy: copy paste amaya while having to not accidentally click it is annoying, since often linebreaks and multiword names or company+product splits occur. Selecting and reading text should be easy. Navigating HTML should be wanted, not accidental. Therefore, the ``click here'' works best for me. PS - "_Get Amaya_" should start a file transfer. - "Get _amaya_ over there!" sounds like "okay next site will be info dump before actual download", which is acceptable to gather trust like brand or imprint recognition over there instead of googling now.

kevinsync 1y ago

My stomach is churning already knowing I'm about to type a short-sighted hot take related to LLMs, but I do wonder what a screen reader would look like that could provide a "summarized" version of any given web page (assumingly via LLM). Basically allow the user to swap between the full page rendered with current methodology / presentation of content and links, and a version of the same page with a summarized version of the text content + a collated, deduped section of actions found in the content. ex. To download W3C's editor/browser Amaya, [click here]. [Download Amaya] [Click here] to get Amaya for Windows All collapse into something singular and sensible like [Download Amaya installer for Windows here] as an action inside the action section. I don't know. I should probably put on a sleeping mask and navigate the web via a screen reader one of these days to really experience how things are.

lillecarl 1y ago
When we can run our own models that are good enough on local hardware (practically) it'll really take off, I believe AI accelerators in end user electronics will revolutionize how we utilize computers. > I don't know. I should probably put on a sleeping mask and navigate the web via a screen reader one of these days to really experience how things are. The difference is that it wouldn't be like experiencing it through a screen reader, it'd be like experiencing it with a screen reader that you can't use and will never be motivated enough to learn. Some blind people are known to listen to code in "reading speed" which is pretty incredible. You'd be like standing on skis for the first time, or using Vim

orthoxerox 1y ago

It's not the best option for "action" hyperlinks, but I prefer it to making them look just like "information" hyperlinks. For example, you have a page about... unemployment benefits. It has some body text that contains hyperlinks to other pages of the website, but at the end is has standalone paragraphs that say, "Click here to check your eligibility and apply online" and "Click here to log into the benefits portal". "Click here" identifies the things you are the most likely to do if you visit this page. This is much easier than scanning the body text for "the _residents_ of the _state_ can _apply online_ to sign up for unemployment benefits". It's not the best option, an even better option it to pull out all "action" links into a separate panel, so it is typographically distinct from the rest of the page. Then the links can just say "check your eligibility and apply for benefits" and "log into the benefits portal".

t1234s 1y ago

If you find you are having to put instructions in your UI like "click here" you may have to rethink it to be more obvious. You don't want make your users have to think.

seydor 1y ago

"click here" links convert well, so people will use them

johnisgood 1y ago

> To download W3C's editor/browser Amaya, click here. "click here" should be a direct link to the latest version. You click on it, it should download the latest version.

mmaunder 1y ago

Ah I remember this when it came out. At the time the web was rife with click-here links. This had a huge effect on solving the problem. Might have appeared on Slashdot.

WiFiMap 1y ago

[dead]

seanwilson 1y ago

It's worth emphasising that if something like "learn more" does work fine for non-screen-readers (like for a call-to-action button at the end of a section, which makes sense to me), you can add extra text just for screen readers so it reads something like "Learn more _about Amaya_" only on screen readers (via aria-label or a CSS class that hides text). There's also SEO benefits here as well because the more descriptive text helps search engines understand what search keywords might be relevant for the page being linked to.

jfax 1y ago

I'm reminded of this post I read regarding links that read "I forgot my password". I thought maybe wording it as "click here if..." would improve that but I somehow intuitively knew that's not right either. > Ignoring the garbage on Web pages is a skill that some people don't have, and I don't know how to teach it. I'm reminded of this each time I try to help someone who doesn't have my background, use the Web; there are users who look at the literally first thing on the page and think about it carefully, even if it's "Please enable notifications," before they see the second item on the page at all. > With Google searches now offering multiple screenfulls of garbage before the actual results, well. > A related issue is failing to understand the epistemic status of different kinds of text on a page. E.g. the user who sees a clickable link with the text "I forgot my password" and believes that that means it's telling him he did forget his password (and it somehow knows this?), rather than just being the place to click if he forgot his password. > The death of UI standardization, of course, makes this issue much worse. https://mstdn.io/@mattskala/113188291223682980 https://mstdn.io/@mattskala/113188291223682980

wvenable 1y ago
If "I forgot my password" is visibly a button then it's more effective than a link in that context. I remember when Microsoft removed many buttons from their UI and replaced them with vaguely colored text (links) and it became a lot harder to figure out what to click on.
- mitchdoogle 1y ago
  I would go for a verb that matches what the user actually is doing, i.e. "Reset Password". Also, I think a panel with a red or yellow background coming up after a couple of unsuccessful attempts to login with a complete sentence, "If you have forgotten your password, please visit this link to reset your password"
xenadu02 1y ago
We should remember that UI conventions are mostly an arbitrary invention or are derivations of prior arbitrary inventions. Users intuitively adapt themselves to the machine and developers adapt themselves to the users forming a feedback loop. To put it another way: the meaning of language has probably been changed by so many websites and apps having an "I forgot my password" link. At least in that context most humans will adapt to understand the intent. Newer generations that have known nothing else won't even consider it to be worth their notice. In that sense there is also value in sticking to convention even if the convention makes no sense when considered in isolation.

ChrisArchitect 1y ago

A related site/discussion last October: Don't use "click here" for link text https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41925658 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41925658

smallerize 1y ago

Dragan Espenschied (despens) has an essay from 2022 about how link text has changed over time https://despens.systems/2022/06/button-pushes-you/ https://despens.systems/2022/06/button-pushes-you/ He identifies a shift from a call-to-action to button text describing the user: "Instead, they’re supposed to reconfigure the user’s state. Users have to accept the spelled out mantra and change their attitude before accessing the next piece of information."

pacifika 1y ago

This is a well researched areas with subject experts, our opinion is large irrelevant.

yard2010 1y ago

Remember when googling "click here" led to the acrobat reader download page? I member!

sherburt3 1y ago

Always annoys me when people attempt to frame their personal preferences as a codified rule rather than a recommendation. All the examples seem fine with some being marginally better than others.

bitwize 1y ago

It's 2025. HTML is, first and foremost, a GUI toolkit. People have forgotten how hypertext works. You want to see what good hypertext looks like? Check out: https://www.zetatalk.com https://www.zetatalk.com This lady has been promulgating her own brand of UFO kookery since the 90s, always in this same beautiful format. Nicely flowing prose, with only the relevant words turned into a link to delve further into the topic. Wikimedia also has very good practices. But whenever I get depressed about the state of webshit, I glance back at ZetaTalk, a product of a different era, when hypertext was exciting, "surfing the web" to explore topics was a fun pastime, and anyone could put virtually anything they wanted online.

lucaspauker 1y ago

This seems like dogma

deleted 1y ago

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theletterf 1y ago

A similar a11y battle is positional language, for example" "The image below" is positional language that might not mean anything to visually impaired users or folks using different layouts.

swyx 1y ago

alternative proposal for 2025 update: Don't use "get started" as button text

iLoveOncall 1y ago

They don't take their own (bad) advice. They have a "Learn more" link on their homepage: https://www.w3.org/QA/IG/ https://www.w3.org/QA/IG/ Anyway, I've learned long ago to ignore UI and UX advice coming from websites that look like theirs.

_Yguy_ 1y ago

But... why?

briandilley 1y ago

None of this matters, considering that "click here" converts better by a long shot.

lysace 1y ago
Got any data on that?

ivanjermakov 1y ago

Linking manual for Wikipedia pages: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Linking https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Li...

DonHopkins 1y ago

...Unless you are linking to a discussion about how you should not use "click here" as link text.

DonHopkins 1y ago

As ClickOps is to DevOps, ClickSplaining is to ManSplaining. Nobody appreciates being talked down to with "click here" as if they can't figure out how to follow a link.

jrappswe 1y ago

Dumbest shit ever, in the case of a download, it SHOULD mention the word “download” in the actual link

neuroelectron 1y ago

"2001"

drellybochelly 1y ago

It's a reasonable CTA for simple cases, but definitely makes assumptions and presupposes a bit.

rednafi 1y ago

I’m reading the comments and thinking: only the HN crowd could get so worked up about something so trivial.

Animats 1y ago

"If you want to call your reader to action..." This article is from a marketing perspective. It assumes that the goal of the web site is to get the user to click on the link. Not to offer the user the opportunity to get more detailed info if they want it.

einpoklum 1y ago
You don't have to be marketing anything. When putting links in a website, you are calling the visitor to action - the action of viewing other content or getting a file.

darqis 1y ago

The times when this was relevant are long past

wolpoli 1y ago

Articles in the 90s would suggest webmasters to use "click here" as link text to let users know that a hyperlink is clickable. The advice kind of make sense since hypertext was new back then and users need that little bit of help to navigate.

jcims 1y ago

I remember this, it stuck in my head and I never did it again. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

karaterobot 1y ago

Keep doing whatever you've been doing for the last 24 years, it's fine.

theendisney 1y ago

But my website is called go-here.nl

zzo38computer 1y ago

I mostly agree with the descriptions described there. However, sometimes a verb or verb phrase is appropriate, especially if it is "download", but then it should be a direct download link; the verb should be directly what it corresponds to and should make sense it context. Often a verb phrase would not be appropriate, though.

eightnoneone 1y ago

This is the internet hill I'll likely die on. A call-to-action is one thing, but a page that only links the word "here" is a hard fail of an author not understanding the hypertext medium. I think of "click here" as stage direction mistakenly left in. When most authors write, they often don't write in a hypertext context. Instead of using a Markdown-like notation for links, they default to stage direction.

paulschreiber 1y ago

People are _still_ doing this shit. Unsubscribe links. Official government site. Fucking terrible.

mgdev 1y ago

Local LLMs will solve this.

unixhero 1y ago

I still use "Click here" in corporate america

ghushn3 1y ago
Consider not. There are many accessibility reasons to not, and corporate america has screen reader users in it too.

rs186 1y ago

I don't see any concern of accessibility in the article, and to my knowledge there is no accessibility issue in any of the examples. So who is w3 to say how people should and shouldn't use links? All that I see are just opinions, with no objective metrics/theories to back up their recommendations. W3 should be in the business of setting up technical standards that go through rigorous processes, not creating nonsense like this.