Quality Tip suggestion: don't say "click here", not everyone will be clicking

I'd like to contribute this to Quality Tips for Webmasters.

    http://www.w3.org/2001/06tips/

Enjoy,
  - Aaron "<marquee />" Swartz

<h1 class="slug"><strong>Don't say "click here"</strong>, not 
everyone will be clicking</h1>

<p>There are lots of ways to visit a web page:</p>

<ul>
	<li>people reading printed web pages</li>
	<li>users of Web-enabled phones</li>
	<li>blind people using <a 
href="http://www.w3.org/WAI/References/Browsing">an alternative 
browser</a></li>
	<li>computer programs (like <a 
href="http://www.google.com/technology/index.html">search 
engines</a>) that process the text of your web page</li>
</ul>

<p>"Click here" assumes everyone has a computer and mouse. And 
it's not even needed: most users of the Web understand how to 
follow links.</p>

<p>So leave out specific mentions of "clicking". 
<strong>Don't</strong> say:</p>

<blockquote>To read these files, you need to download Adobe 
Acrobat Reader, please <a href="">click here</a>.</blockquote>

<p>Also leave out actions for the visitor to folow. So don't 
even say:</p>

<blockquote>To read these files, go to the <a 
href="http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html">Adobe 
Acrobat Reader website</a> to download the necessary 
software.</blockquote>

<p>Better, would be to say:</p>

<blockquote>Reading these files requires the <a 
href="http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html">Adobe 
Acrobat Reader</a>, a free download.</blockquote>

<p>Best of all, would be to <a 
href="http://access.adobe.com/simple_form.html">provide the 
document in HTML</a>.</p>


<h2>Further Reading</h2>
<ul>
   <li><a href="http://kbs.cs.tu-
berlin.de/~jutta/ht/writing/text.html">Writing hypertext copy</a>
      in <a href="http://kbs.cs.tu-
berlin.de/~jutta/ht/writing.html">What is good hypertext 
writing?</a>, by <a href="http://www.cs.tu-
berlin.de/~jutta/index.html">Jutta Degener</a>, April 1998. (See 
also: <a href="http://www.cs.tu-
berlin.de/~jutta/ht/writing/words.html">Dangerous words</a>)</li>
</ul>

Received on Saturday, 15 September 2001 23:33:02 UTC