Monday, March 29, 2010

Best Practices for Links

Effective links are well labeled (verbally), well positioned (visually), and match the users' expectations (behaviorally.)

When to open links in a new window

Links to Carnegie Mellon sites should open in the same window. Non-Carnegie Mellon sites should open in a new window.

Links that open documents or launch applications

Documents, such as PDFs and MOVs, should open in a new window and be labeled [.pdf] or [.mov] in the link, for example:

Watch Professor Smith’s lecture [.mov]

Language to use for labeling

Links should be relevant text. Do not link words like "click here," "this page," etc. Search engines will not be looking for the word "here"; they will be searching for the words in the subject. For example:

For more audio and video, see our multimedia archive.  Correct

See the multimedia archive here.  Incorrect