Skip to content
UX Atlas
ComponentCraft conventionFoundational

Link

Navigates to a destination, and must look different from surrounding text.

Definition

A link takes the user to another location. It must be identifiable without relying on colour alone, and its text should describe the destination rather than the act of clicking.

Craft convention. True because the industry converged on it. Breaking it costs familiarity, not correctness.

On this page
  1. Definition
  2. Requirements
  3. Continue from here

Requirements

  • Underline links inside body text. Colour alone fails WCAG 1.4.1 and is hard to spot in dense prose.
  • Link text should make sense out of context, since screen reader users can list all links on a page. 'Read more' repeated eleven times is useless.
  • Mark links that open in a new tab, and prefer not to force that decision on the user.
  • Give links that download a file the file type and size in the text.
  • Visited state helps orientation in reference content and can be omitted in applications.

Continue from here

Each link says what the connection is, so you can tell a principle from an alternative from a thing people mix this up with.

Principles behind this

The reasoning this solution is an application of.

Depends on

Get these right first, or this one will not hold.

Often used with

These usually appear in the same screen or the same decision.

Related concept

Connected closely enough to change how you apply this.