Links in Headings Are Okay
Jens O. Meiert, October 20, 2007.
This entry is filed under Web Development, Usability.
Referring to recent discussion, a fresh W3C list question by John, and at the same time crisping up a 2004 poll by Mike: Links in headlines are semantically legitimate and thus generally fine.
The reasoning behind this is summarized quite quickly:
- The HTML specs do not forbid it (they basically leave it open),
- just about every bit of information might be worth linking, and
- linking headings can help usability, too.
So while there’s generally nothing to worry about when using links in headings or even linking them entirely, it should be kept in mind that doing so should be useful, for example when it helps in quickly locating additional information. There are cases, however, where linking headings makes no sense at all and should be avoided, for example those heading “permalinks” in article, where the permalink links to the document already being open. This is a general usability issue, not only concerning linking the homepage from the homepage.
I’d love to hear additional pro and contra arguments, either as a comment or as a message to public-evangelist.
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Comments
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On June 6, 2008, 3:41 CEST, David Ehmer said:
Placing a link on a heading (usually) changes how it is visually rendered. I see this as having two issues:
1. Looks less appealing as headings are no longer consistently displayed if there are other non-linked headings on the same page.
2. Increases the likely cognitive processing time for users who need to consider if the text is a link or a heading or both. -
On June 9, 2008, 19:44 CEST, Jens Meiert said:
David, I see where you’re going but I’d say that 1) depends on the use cases (which should handle this consistently, like linking all headings in blog archives), and 2) is a matter of course, so usual recommendations for highlighting links apply.