 Click here. No, click there!
Saturday, 2 July 2005
If all interface designers bothered to read W3C’s HTML Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines we wouldn’t have the current state of link idiocy that seems to abound the web.
You might expect the ridiculous “click here” as link text on amateur and “home grown” websites, but what about these well-known Australian companies:
While there are many good arguments against polluting websites with “click here”, I have yet to hear a convincing argument in favour of using it as link text. The only response I’ve ever gotten was “it doesn’t matter” or “who cares”.
Inadequate.
The document Don’t use “click here” as link text, which is part of Quality Tips for Webmasters by the W3C, says:
When calling the user to action, use brief but meaningful link text that:
- provides some information when read out of context
- explains what the link offers
- doesn’t talk about mechanics
- is not a verb phrase
“Click here” looks stupid, redundant, and defeats its own purpose. It looks especially stupid when printed on paper. To use it is just lazy writing and any decent, trained copy editor would ban it.
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