Links

Take the Challenge

Learn more and sign up to participate in the Mission: Accessible challenge.

Make an Impact in Five Minutes...

Choose one or two pages whenever you have a few minutes and fix instances of posting a URL directly on the page or using common hyperlink text such as “Click Here” or “More”.

Locate these instances on a page
Look at the previous sentence and see if there is text that describes where the link is going. If not, add concise descriptive text
Highlight the text you’d like to use for the hyperlink
Click the link button above the Rich Content Editor
Paste the URL into the link field and click ok

You can improve the accessibility and usability of links in your course by creating concise, descriptive, and meaningful hyperlinks that could stand alone and give users an idea where the link goes.

Impact

When including links on a Canvas page, having meaningful text attached to a link as opposed to “Click here” or “More” or the entire URL helps all readers know where the link will take them. This is particularly important for screen reader users. If you post a URL to your page, screen readers will read out the entire address. Think about the length and make up of most URLs and how difficult it would be to decipher information from one being read aloud. Another common way for screen readers users to access links is to listen to a list of links on a page. If the hyperlink text uses “Click here”, “More”, or something similar, the list of links are useless to screen reader users as they don’t share any real information. Using meaningful text in hyperlinks helps all users know where the link will take them. When read in context, a screen reader will indicate "link" before reading the hyperlink text.

How To

When choosing the text to act as the hyperlink, make sure it gives the user an idea of where the link will take them.

Write your Canvas text as you typically would.
To add a link, select the text that you want to use as the hyperlink.
Click the link button above the Rich Content Editor.
Paste the link into the link field and click ok.

Things to Avoid

Avoid posting only the URL for a link.
Avoid using the following common hyperlink text as they don’t tell the reader where the link is going.
1. More
2. Click Here
3. Info
4. Read
Avoid using the same hyperlink text multiple times on the same page, especially if the links go to different places. This can get confusing.
Avoid linking entire sentences - be as clear and concise in your hyperlink text as possible.

Moving Forward

As you create new pages and/or courses, include links directly in the text as you write it. This will help ensure accessibility from the beginning.