Why I Display Bare Links in My Web Writing

[jesse_the_k]

When a web page address (“URL”) appears as-is in the text, it’s a “bare link.”

For example, this URL:
http://jesse-the-k.dreamwidth.org/profile
takes you to my profile page.

The traditional way to present a link uses HTML code. You wrap the web page address around words or images. The wrapped content then takes on the distinctive text appearance that says “you can click me.”[1] If you’re using a screen reader, could you leave a comment explaining how it communicates “you can select me”?

Here’s a traditional HTML link: Clicking anywhere in this sentence takes you to my profile page.

Here’s what I typed to make that anchored link:

<a href=“http://jesse-the-k.dreamwidth.org/profile”>Clicking anywhere in this sentence takes you to my profile page.</a>

In Dreamwidth and most other online writing spaces, a bare link automatically becomes clickable. I prefer bare links because

• They’re easier to type, test, and proofread.


• They simplify working around link rot.[2]

I write with a text editor (saving on Dropbox, syncing between Editorial on iPad[3] and MultiMarkdownComposer[4] on Mac). I gather URLs by copying from my browser’s address bar then pasting into the text draft. It’s easy to make mistakes copying, pasting, and window switching.

There’s no ambiguity with bare links: I can read the domain name directly. As I’m writing I can click the link in my text editor and see what window opens in my browser. I don’t have to publish the draft to Dreamwidth to check my links.

When someone reads my writing in six months, or six years, they may click a link that's changed format and get the “404 page not found” error. Thankfully, the Internet Archive continually saves snapshots of the entire web, so you can copy the text to paste into the “Wayback Machine,” here:

https://archive.org/web/

Unless the owner has intentionally prevented the page’s display, you will see a chronological list of page snapshots.

---

1. Many browsers default to blue underlines for links. Happily both site creator and end user can make them more legible. For my current browser style, that’s dark burgundy without underlines.  ↩
   
2. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/26/cobweb  ↩
   
3. http://omz-software.com/editorial/  ↩
   
4. http://multimarkdown.com  ↩

Comments

[delight]

My screen reader reads the entire URL after the text provided, so you get the URL no matter what and that is how it tells me there's a link there -- I would prefer a different system, because it makes long URLs pretty unbearable and you can't skip through them. I'm sure other readers use better and different ways but that is what mine does! Just informs you there's a link by reading the entire thing.

[jesse_the_k]

Huh. That's really annoying, and this bare link technique doesn't make a difference. The screen readers I tested in the 80s used different pitches, beeps and boops to convey formatting info. I was imagining a low double-boop at the start of the anchor and again at the end.

Lynx, the text-only browser, shows a lovely numbered list of URLs, which my footnote format above attempts to reproduce.

Would you indulge my curiosity to tell me the name of your reader software?

[delight]

It's VoiceOver, which is why I'm pretty sure that -- since it's still in active development and is otherwise very smooth, the Alex voice seems to be constantly improving and I'm very happy with the hotkey controls -- there's some kind of setting to make it not do that but I haven't found it. JAWS did the boop-boop-beep back in Ye Olde Windows Days (I stopped using Windows in 2006).

[jadelennox]

Huh, my experience with VoiceOver is that it only reads the entire URL if it's a bare link, but reads the link text without the URL if there's text -- which is why as an accessibility issue we always tell people to try to avoid bare links. Maybe it's a version or configuration issue?

[davidgillon]

Another advantage of bare links is that the full link is there to be seen, and, provided it's not too obscure, if you don't know the author of the article it can reassure you you aren't about to be sidetracked somewhere dodgy. (That said, I mostly tend to use HTML links).