Link Purpose (In Context)

About

Version:	WCAG 2.0 and up
Number:	2.4.4
Level:	A
Applicability:	Hyperlinks
Requirement:	The purpose of each link can be determined from the link text alone or from the link text together with its programmatically determined link context, except where the purpose of the link would be ambiguous to users in general.
Guidance:	Understanding Success Criterion 2.4.4 How to meet Success Criterion 2.4.4
Techniques:	ARIA7: Using aria-labelledby for link purpose ARIA8: Using aria-label for link purpose C7: Using CSS to hide a portion of the link text G53: Identifying the purpose of a link using link text combined with the text of the enclosing sentence G91: Providing link text that describes the purpose of a link G189: Providing a control near the beginning of the Web page that changes the link text H24: Providing text alternatives for the area elements of image maps H30: Providing link text that describes the purpose of a link for anchor elements H33: Supplementing link text with the title attribute H77: Identifying the purpose of a link using link text combined with its enclosing list item H78: Identifying the purpose of a link using link text combined with its enclosing paragraph H79: Identifying the purpose of a link in a data table using the link text combined with its enclosing table cell and associated table header cells H81: Identifying the purpose of a link in a nested list using link text combined with the parent list item under which the list is nested G91: Providing link text that describes the purpose of a link SCR30: Using scripts to change the link text

Purpose

The purpose of this success criterion is to ensure the purpose of each link is understandable from its context so readers can easily determine if they want to follow the link or skip it.

How to Meet

For all links in a digital publication (whether internal or to external web sites), authors need to ensure that the label of the link and/or its immediately surrounding text clearly identifies the purpose of the link.

Common ways links fail this success criterion is if the purpose of the link is explained in a paragraph before the link (e.g., the link itself only contains generic text like "click here" or "read more"), or if an image is used without properly descriptive alternative text.

Additional Information

The following knowledge base pages provide more information about how to address this success criterion for publishing content:

Links