In my last article I talked about trying to find an office in a 3-story building with no directory. Today you enter the building and it has a directory, but you are still lost. You see the directory, but it goes something like this: Floor 1 – Office 1, Office 2, Office 3, etc.; Floor 2 has the same listings; and Floor 3 the same. Still not very helpful.

This can be the same experience in your documents if you do not create meaningful links. Many times when linking out to a resource, we tend to link to a website using one of the following: Link, Click Here, Read More, Here, etc. As a screen reader user, a student can ask the reader to pull up a list of the links in the document in order to quickly find where they need to go, however, a list of 20 Click Here’s, or Read More’s is not helpful. Similar to a document without headings, if link text does not describe where it is going, the student has to read the document from the beginning in order to find the information they are looking for.

The general rule of thumb for formatting links is as follows:

• If a document will be printed, include the web address as non-linked text.
  • Please go to the NMC Website (https://www.nmc.edu/) for more information.
• If the document isn’t meant to be printed, you do not have to include the web address.
  • Please go to the NMC Website for more information.

If you have any questions or would like to know more about making your links meaningful, contact me at 995-1978 or at strier@nmc.edu.