Descriptive link text: the questions we get asked most

The gap between knowing this and actually doing it is where most teams lose ground. The questions about descriptive link text that come up most often on our calls.

Most of it is correctness rather than charity: use the right element and much of it happens automatically. Budget a little time for it every quarter and it never becomes a project of its own.

Do we need to care about this?

Links are often read out of context. The reasoning matters more than the rule, because the rule has exceptions. If two people in the business would answer this differently, that gap is the actual problem.

Can it wait until after launch?

Occasionally. More often the post-launch version costs several times the pre-launch one. Where this goes wrong is almost never a lack of knowledge.

How do we know it is working?

Say where the link goes. The cost of getting this wrong is rarely visible on the day it happens. Most teams find the first pass takes an afternoon and the maintenance takes minutes a month.

The short version

Accessibility work almost always improves the experience for people who have no impairment at all. 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

The point is not perfection, it is knowing which of these you have consciously chosen to skip.