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I've often thought there is
a subtle art to the humble hyperlink
, that stalwartbuilding block of hypertext, the stuff thatTed Nelson's Xanadu dreamwas made of.The word hypertext was coined by Nelson and published in a paperdelivered to a national conference of the Association for ComputingMachinery in 1965. Adding to his design for a nonsequential writingtool, Nelson proposed a feature called "zippered lists," in whichelements in one text would be linked to related or identical elements inother texts. Nelson's two interests, screen editing and nonsequentialwriting, were merging. With zippered lists, links could be madebetween large sections, small sections, whole pages, or singleparagraphs. The writer and reader could manufacture a uniquedocument by following a set of links between discrete documents thatwere "zipped" together.Many precedents for the idea of hypertext existed in literature andscience.The Talmud, for instance, is a sort of hypertext,with blocks of
commentary arranged in concentric rectangles around the page. So arescholarly footnotes, with their numbered links between the main bodyof the text and supplementary scholarship.In July 1945, long before Nelson turned his attention to electronicinformation systems, Vannevar Bush publishedan essay titled "As We
May Think"in The Atlantic Monthly, which described a hypotheticalsystem of information storage and retrieval called "memex." Memexwould allow readers to create personal indexes to documents, and tolink passages from different documents together withspecial markers.While Bush's description was purely speculative, he gave a brilliant andinfluential preview of some of the features Nelson would attempt torealize inXanadu.The inventor's original hypertext design predicted most of the essentialcomponents of today's hypertext systems. Nonetheless, his talk to theAssociation for Computing Machinery had little impact. There was abrief burst of interest in this strange researcher, but although his ideaswere intriguing, Nelson lacked the technical knowledge to prove that itwas possible to build the system he envisioned.I distinctly remember readingthis 1995 Wired article on Ted Nelson and Xanaduwhen it was published. It had a profound impact on me. I've always remembered it,long after that initial read. I know it'snovella long, butit's arguably the best singlearticle I've ever read in Wired; I encourage you to read it in its entirety when youhave time. It speaks volumes about the souls of computers-- and the softwaredeveloperswho love them.Xanadu was vaporware long before the term even existed. You might think that TedNelson would be pleased that HTML and the world wide web have delivered muchof the Xanadu dream, almost 40 years later. But you'd be wrong:HTML is precisely what we were trying to
prevent
-- ever-breakinglinks, links going outward only, quotes you can't follow to their origins,no version management, no rights management.I suspect Wikipedia may be closer to Ted's vision of Xanadu: a self-containedconstellation of highly interlinked information, with provisions for identity,versioning, and rights management.But enough about the history of the hyperlink. How can we use them effectively in
the here and now? I thoroughly enjoyed Philipp Lenssen's recentlink usability tips.I liked it so much, in fact, that I'm using it as a template for a visual compendium of link usability tips-- the art of hyperlinking.1.
Ensure your links are large enough to easily click.
When building links,don't run afoul of Fitt's Law. If what you're linking is small, make it bigger. If you can't make it bigger, at least fluff it up a bit with clickable borders so it'seasier for people to accurately click. In the below screenshot,
only
thenumbers are linked, which is a shame.2.
The first link is the most important one.
The first link will garner most of the reader's attention, and the highest clickthrough rates. Choose your firstlink appropriately. Start with the important stuff. Don't squander your firstlink on a triviality.3.
Don't link everything.
Using too many links will turn your text into noise.This works in two dimensions: excessive linking makes text difficult to read,and excessive linking causes deflation in the value of all your existing links.Link in moderation. Only link things important enough to warrant a link.4.
Don't radically alter link behavior.
Links are the cornerstone of the web.Users have built up years of expectactions based on existing behavior in theirweb browsers. When you change the way hyperlinks work, you're redefining afundamental part of the web. Is this really what you want? Is this really whatyour
readers
want?
5.
Don't title your link "Click Here".
Don't even use the words "Click" or"Here" anywhere in your link text. Describe what the link will
do
for the userwhen they click on it.6.
Don't link things the user might want to select and copy.
Woe upon thepoor user who needs to select and copy hyperlinked text. It requires acomplex ballet of very precise mouse movements to get it to work at all.Here, I'm trying to select the name "Ralph Waldo Emerson", which is part of the hyperlink. Granted, this is not a terribly common scenario-- it's probablythe most subtle tip on Philipp's list. But when it happens, it's awkward andunpleasant, so do give it some consideration.
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