Using real text links

- [Instructor] Another quick and easy win for accessibility is using real text links, which means that the text representing the link, lets someone know what the link is for. This is especially important for someone who's unable to see, and doesn't know the context of the link. The screen reader will let the person know what the link says. Let's take a look at why this is important. Here, I'm inside of this webpage that we created, again. And I just want to navigate over these links. Now, all of these will take you to the same place, Water Testing Data, if I click there, it brings us to that spreadsheet. Now, all of these will, but there is a difference. When I use the screen reader notice what is said when I go over this link, which is a real text link, it says, "Water Testing Data." The one below that isn't and notice there what the screen reader will say. And I do want you to listen to it, so you know what some people would have to listen to. So here, I'm going to turn the screen reader on. - [Automated Voice] Visited link. - [Instructor] So far so good. It told us it was a link and it's water testing data. Now, let's go to the next link. - [Automated Voice] Visited link. - [Instructor] Okay, I'll stop it. There we go, but I think you get the point. That's not what you want to hear when you go over a link. You'd rather hear what that link is going to bring you to. And these are real text links. Now, let's take a look at how to create one. Let's say, I'm inside of any program that has a real text editor. Now, for this, I want to create a link that shows someone the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. So, I'm going to go ahead and copy that URL. And then, in this document, I want to say, "Click here to access the Web Content "Accessibility Standards." Now, I'm going to make this non-bold. And what I see a lot of people do is to then go ahead and paste this URL. And it works, you can click on the URL and get to it, but it's not a very effective way, and not a very accessible way. What I recommend doing is to highlight the text that describes what the link is. In this case, I want to select Web Content Accessibility Standards, and then I'll go up to the top here and click on this link button. It opens up this, I'm going to paste in the link that I want it to go to and then click Apply. Now, you'll notice that Web Content Accessibility Standards is now blue, and underlined. It's letting us know that it's a link. If I click on it, it shows us the link. Same as this link, but this one will be picked up much easier by a screen reader. So, use real text links to increase accessibility for your learning content.