Short Thoughts

Click Here

This is one that really annoys me. You’re sitting in your comfy chair, reading an article, written in beautiful, flowing prose, on your favorite blog or website. All of a sudden, you’re jarred out of your blissful unawareness that you’re not actually reading printed matter in an age long since expired by a glaring blue abomination: Click here.

Yes, it’s true that — for the most part — a piece of online content’s usability is primarily the responsibility of the software powering the website. In most cases, a well-designed piece of software will take much of the accessibility burden off of the content author, freeing her to focus only on producing the substance of the next great American novel. Ironically, the problem arises when content producers think about the computer too much.

Why it Sucks for Accessibility

As a web developer, I’ve learned over the years that if the W3C says something, it’s typically correct, or at the very least worth taking under consideration. Thus, allow me to excerpt the W3C document “HTML Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0.”

Good link text should not be overly general; don’t use “click here.” Not only is this phrase device-dependent (it implies a pointing device) it says nothing about what is to be found if the link if [sic] followed. Instead of “click here”, link text should indicate the nature of the link target, as in “more information about sea lions” or “text-only version of this page”. (HTML Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0, Section 6.1: Link text, accessed 30 Nov 2009).

Ignoring the minor grammatical errors and inconsistency in punctuation (*sigh*), the document pretty much spells everything out for you: using the phrase “click here” is bad, for all of the reasons it lists. If you’re visiting using an iPhone, you can’t “click;” if you’re visiting using a text-based browser, you can’t “click;” if you print the article, you can’t “click;” if you’re not human (ie, a piece of software is trying to gather meaningful information from a website), you can’t “click.” “Click” is a bad term to begin with.

More importantly, though, using “click here” (and just “click here”) as the body of a link dissociates the reference from its context. Most human beings are intelligent enough to infer an associated context. For instance, in the passage…

Click here for more information about cute and cuddly penguins.

… most readers will have no problem inferring that the link directs to more information about cute and cuddly penguins (it’s kind of a massive “duh”). However, unless a piece of software has at least a little bit of AI, a dumb machine creating a link table of that content will not automatically make the same assumption. All it sees is “Click here.” If we were to rework the passage…

Want to learn more? We’ve got plenty of additional information about cute and cuddly penguins.

… the context is considerably more explicit, and that same dumb machine would label the reference as “Additional information about cute and cuddly penguins.” Far more useful, if you ask me.

It’s important to note that, in this case, reworking the link text did add a touch of verbosity, but that’s primarily because of the contrived nature of our example (ie, if you had access to the statements before this one, it would likely be quite easy to condense them into something less wordy).

Why it Sucks for Semantics

Even if accessibility wasn’t a concern (which it always should be), the phrase “click here” still rubs the semantic poodle the wrong way, and Fifi doesn’t like it.

The problem stems from the fact that the semantic essence of a hyperlink is frequently confused with the popular implementation and presentation of a hyperlink. Say it with me: a hyperlink is not a section of clickable text on a web page.

In its purest definition, a hyperlink is a unidirectional (“one-way”) reference between two pieces of online content. It defines a relationship, and is not “content” in and of itself in the strictest sense of the word. Yes, my friends, believe it or not, a hyperlink actually qualifies as metadata, or perhaps even what I like to call metacontent (by my definition, of course; you could easily find many people who disagree with me). Using “click here” as a link title rips the concept of a hyperlink out of the sphere of metacontent, and leaves it to stand front and center on the content stage, shuffling around awkwardly and staring at its feet, trying not to be noticed. It unnecessarily makes the reader consciously aware of the fact that a piece of content references an external source in a not-so-unobtrusive way, and that makes it non-conducive to a good user experience.

The Solution

The solution is a simple one: if you’re a content author, whenever you write content for the web, pretend you’re writing content for a book, or some other print source. Better than that, write media agnostically. Then, when you’re done, go back through what you’ve written and add links where they’re appropriate, without changing or adding anything.

The result? A beautiful, straightforward, and accessible article that reads the same on the web as it does off, and allows the wonderful and myriad tools of the Interwebs to make the most meaningful sense of your content by keeping things semantic.

Still Not Convinced?

Let me leave you with an analogy and an anecdote.

Many non-fiction books that deal with broad topics include footnotes to make it easier for readers to find additional information should they so choose. In almost every book I’ve read, these footnotes are simply denoted with a small numeral next to the text that merits the footnote; only once did I read a book that actually included the phrase “See footnote #X.” Using the phrase “see footnote” is like naming a link “click here:” not only is it jarring and disruptive to the reader’s flow, but it’s completely unnecessary, because most readers know that a tiny numeral indicates a footnote reference, just as most Internet users know a blue underlined phrase (or some consistent, site-specific style) denotes a hyperlink. Footnotes, like links, are metacontent, and shouldn’t draw undue attention to themselves.

If that doesn’t convince you, consider this: my dad has been teaching 7th grade pre-algebra for a long time now, and a few years back, he gave an assignment in which his students were allowed to type their (original) responses. One response in particular caught his eye, and he brought it over to the student’s desk. “You know,” he said, “your answer says ‘Click here for more solutions,’ and I keep pressing the paper, but nothing’s coming up! Any idea what could be wrong?”