- From: Lloyd Wood <l.wood@eim.surrey.ac.uk>
- Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 17:52:48 +0100 (BST)
- To: Dan Connolly <connolly@w3.org>
- cc: Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com>, www-validator@w3.org, www-qa@w3.org
On Fri, 28 Sep 2001, Dan Connolly wrote: > > At 02:56 PM 9/28/2001 , Dan Connolly wrote: > > >I integrated various updates to the tips > > >themselves... added Aaron's "click here" > > >tip with supporting materials from Sean. > > > > In my opinion, the argument "but not everyone clicks!" > > is entirely the wrong reason for telling people not to use > > "click here." you'd use 'follow this!' instead. one reason why such terms shouldn't be used is that 'click here' and the rest lead to cognitive dissonance; they're imperatives in a sea of non-imperative text. another is that it is link text that does not describe what it links to, but is still often shown or described differently, drawing attention to it and away from the surrounding text. Imagine non-link text was not there at all (e.g. set text colour to background colour for graphical visual browsers). can you still navigate the page, or are you lost in a maze of unhelpful 'click here's? Attention flickers from link to link, as the links stand out and the reader is unlikely to be at a final destination and is looking to get there; often only link text is read. It's best to make the text as useful as possible. Picking the limits of the text phrase for the link is also an art in itself. I feel that the conventions of hypertext grammar are yet to be widely established, but I'd favour too much in the link (adjectives plus noun, an entire phrase) over too little. L. <L.Wood@surrey.ac.uk>PGP<http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/>
Received on Saturday, 29 September 2001 12:52:57 UTC