A practical checklist for descriptive link text

Every audit we run turns up some version of this. Run through this the next time descriptive link text comes up.

The cost of retrofitting accessibility is several times the cost of building it in. The failure mode is not doing it wrong, it is doing it once and assuming it stays done.

The checklist

• Links are often read out of context
• "Read more" tells nobody anything
• Say where the link goes
• Someone is named as the owner
• There is a date to review it again

Why this earns attention

Links are often read out of context. The teams that handle this well are rarely the ones with the biggest budgets. The failure mode is not doing it wrong, it is doing it once and assuming it stays done.

How to tell if yours is fine

Most of it is correctness rather than charity: use the right element and much of it happens automatically. Three things worth confirming about descriptive link text before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Links are often read out of context — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

None of this needs a rewrite. Most of it is a morning's work once someone decides to do it.