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Don't use "click here" for link text

dont-click-here.com

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Re: Don't use "click here" for link text

#41

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

ldoughty wrote: post #10

I would argue you can't win either way... If you use real link, your training people to trust what the text says is actually where you're going to go.. By making people do extra work to see where click here goes you might actually be training to protect themselves... Of course that doesn't work when Outlook goes and wraps the whole thing in a safety URL you can't see past... Or with shorteners.. but in all of those c…

> Outlook goes and wraps the whole thing in a safety URL you can't see past

That bullshit really needs to end. It's making people more likely to fall for phishing scams when they can't figure out the URL.

Re: Don't use "click here" for link text

#42

Post by fsckboy »

pphysch wrote: post #23
CPLX wrote: post #8

I dunno, seems pretty clear to me and it’s a super common approach. Is this science or just kind of a style question?

It's hard science as far as accessibility goes. A screen reader user wastes a lot of time if they have to differentiate what 10 different "click here" links mean.

i'm sure if you published the hard science here, all sorts of holes could be poked in it. this idea that deciphering what links are clickable wastes time is nonsense and probably brought to us by primitive AIs that are measuring how many ads per second they can get the multitudes to click on.

people who make their own pages invariable "click here" and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it.

A few months back a proud father posted his daughter's first website that she made herself and it was all "click here" and not a single person either told her off or complained about the waste of time.

Re: Don't use "click here" for link text

#43

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

antiquark wrote: post #25
ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #7

At this point I'm just happy if hyperlinks are a different color

Welcome to the "hide-and-seek" philosophy of UX design.

Form over function.

Everything needs to look clean and uniform, discoverability be damned.

Looking nice in a screenshot is more important than being usable.

Re: Don't use "click here" for link text

#44

Post by AlienRobot »

indymike wrote: post #33

I believed this until I kept getting tickets about people not knowing where to click. So, we made links look like buttons, and stopped getting tickets. Then our designer didn't like the buttons, so the click here links were the only option. People struggle with discovery, even though they shouldn't.

Yes, this is a good advice for web spiders, but I don't believe it's a good advice for humans.

Re: Don't use "click here" for link text

#45

Post by zahlman »

phreack wrote: post #15

> But people won't know where to click? > It's not 1995. I've seen lots, lots of people living in 1995 these days then.

It's a bit jarring (but not in a bad way) to read "It's not 1995." on a page that uses no JavaScript, no images, and where the only styling is "body { width:650px; }".

Re: Don't use "click here" for link text

#46

Post by AlienRobot »

gregjor wrote: post #14

> But people won't know where to click? > It's not 1995. I agree in principle with the article. But I have spent time reading help desk tickets so I know that average users often don't know where to click unless you push their nose in it. I can't count how many times users have said "I was afraid to click the link" or "I don't know where that button will go" because the UI presented links and buttons with meaningful…

"It's not 1995" is really a terrible argument, because https://xkcd.com/1053/

You have people today who don't even know what a link is.

Re: Don't use "click here" for link text

#47

Post by gregjor »

wileydragonfly wrote: post #27
gregjor wrote: post #14

> But people won't know where to click? > It's not 1995. I agree in principle with the article. But I have spent time reading help desk tickets so I know that average users often don't know where to click unless you push their nose in it. I can't count how many times users have said "I was afraid to click the link" or "I don't know where that button will go" because the UI presented links and buttons with meaningful…

Well, it doesn’t help matters when CIOs berate us at town halls “the entire company blew up literally because someone clicked ONE LINK they shouldn’t have!!!!” and I’ve sat through many of those “blame the user” sessions. Two factor has resulted in similar berating. “How dare someone click APPROVE at 2am?!” Well, they were trying to silence the phone when they were attempting to sleep. Why are you allowing pushes out…

Sometimes you can't win. I worked on a site that had what I call a punitive UI -- buttons and links that would throw up a modal alert telling users they shouldn't have clicked on that. When I started changing the UI so users didn't see controls/links they shouldn't click on, users complained that "the web page changed," as if they had memorized exact pixel locations and I caused their confusion. Pigeons pecking at the green dot.

Numerous studies tell us that people don't read web pages, or don't read much of the text on the page. A big "click here" helps in that case, a call to action as another commenter wrote. As long as the page or email just has one call to action.

Re: Don't use "click here" for link text

#48

Post by xnx »

neilv wrote: post #26
xnx wrote: post #22

Amazingly, this has been the recommendation for at least the last 27(!) years: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/be-succinct-writing-for-the... People who headed that advice benefited from better human usability and improved "SEO" performance due to keyword relevance. Web tools should have warnings about "click here" text in the same way they do syntax errors.

Around 1994, I'm pretty sure I saw ordinary simple "how to make a Web page" tutorials that told you specifically not do "here" or "click here" links. You were to instead make the link around relevant text. (Also, early people often got hypertext just fine. The problem was print designers, who kept wanting to make the Web be glossy brochures. At first, they'd try things like making the whole page a GIF/JPEG, and would…

Amen. Graphic designers with a background in anything print have been a huge hindrance to the web. After a long time in the wilderness of single-page apps and framework, I see at least some small cracks of light where people are recognizing how simple/useful pages (e.g. McMaster-Carr) can be the most "beautiful".

Re: Don't use "click here" for link text

#49

Post by askew »

jeffchao wrote: post #11

Accessibility and universal design may be another important factor. I’ve recall that usage of “click here” makes it harder for screen reader users to tell what link they are trying to click on. I haven’t caught up with the tech in awhile, but such a small change/effort on my part has been ingrained into my link making!

Indeed: can you imagine attempting to disambiguate a list of links that all say "Click here" or "Read more"?

Re: Don't use "click here" for link text

#50

Post by Jzush »

While I agree with the authors sentiment and do try not to include 'click here' links in any of the content I'm asked to post. I disagree with his assertion that it's confusing and slows people down.

Having been on the Internet almost daily since the late 90's. I can say with some degree of certainty that the ambitiousness of 'click here' links on the Internet has more or less trained people to look for them.

In the authors example

Jcrew email receipt

For additional order details, please click here to go to your account.

For additional order details, go to your account.

Not only do I immediately understand 'click here' to go to my account, but 'click here' conveys that the link will deep link me directly to the referenced section or pertinent information that the sentence is discussing.

Alternately a 'your account' link, does not convey this message. It tells me I am going to a general account management interface, and will then need to browse around to find the information or section referenced by the sentence.

I believe 'click here' links have their place and convey the very specific message that they should deep link someone directly to the content referenced in the link and not just to a site that contains the referenced content somewhere on the page.

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