Why Are Meaningful Hyperlinks a Key Concept for Accessibility?

A meaningful hyperlink that is embedded in text is important for accessibility because it tells the reader where they are going.

Click here, for example, is not meaningful because it is not clear where it will take you.

Long, convoluted links like this one are also not very meaningful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awZbjJ0DAEU

How Do I Use Meaningful Link Text in a Manifold Project?

In Manifold, you are always bringing texts into the platform, so if you’re starting out with a Word Doc or a Google Doc, then that means you are first adding meaning hyperlink text to it.

To do that, in a Word Doc or Google Doc, you right-click on some text you wrote and then select the “Insert Link” option in order to add a hyperlink to that text.

For example, in a Google Doc, I might have text like this that includes a hyperlink:

“A good tool for testing if your hyperlinks have meaningful text is the tota11y plugin.”

Then, when I bring that Google Doc into Manifold, the meaningful hyperlink will carry over.

Here is another example:

“If you are using UW Libraries Search, then I recommend you use the Advanced Search option.”