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     Hyperlinks                 
 

Do not feel constrained by paper; web pages are almost three-dimensional in the way that information can be presented. You can hyperlink, or jump from one place in the text to another and your text can contain as many hyperlinks to other pages as you need. A hyperlink is basically an electronic link which allows you to easily jump from one web document to another web document.  They can provide links to documents on our own Website, or to any other web site on the Internet.

What should Hyperlinks look like?

The convention is to mark hyperlinks in underlined blue text, but you can link a graphic object, or a picture on a web page. 

• Choose an appropriate length for the link text.  A single word may be too small a target, a whole sentence for a link may prove difficult to read.
• Make sure that it is clear to the visitor where your links will take them.  They may be just words highlighted in a sentence, but they must make it clear where the links will take them.
• Links, that use cryptic or obscure language, force the reader to follow the link before they're sure the information at the other end is worth reading. If it's not what they want, their time is wasted and they often have to back up to continue.

You must create a context for your link. Write the surrounding text so that it shows what the link does. Help your reader understand where links lead, and what sections contain. They're paying a time penalty for every link they follow, so help them to understand what value they will receive if they follow a link. Be critical of each link: if your surrounding text does not accurately predict the destination, examine that text or, more fundamentally, the reason for having the link.

It's an impossible task to make the text displayed in a link match the title of the destination page. It also makes it difficult to maintain the site as the titles of documents change.

Remember that hyperlinks tend to attract the eye like highlighted text, so adding a link to text does emphasise the word or phrase containing the link, and can actively make the text more difficult to read.

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Last modified: 08/31/11