I am sure that as you look around the Internet, not just the OCPS web pages, you will find many instances where the text on the page asks you to ‘Click Here’ to go to another page, or to a form, or to open a document. However, according to accessibility concerns, such a small hyperlink (especially those that just include the word ‘Here’), can be problematic for people with hand movement disabilities using touch screens (cell phones, tablets, and even larger computer screens). The next image shows an example of a bad link in which the link is simply the word: email.
Rather than using just a single word for the hyperlink text, we strongly suggest that hyperlinks should consist of a more complete phrase or even a sentence such as the following:
By doing this, you make your page content more accessible to people who may have trouble pointing at the screen with a mouse or even touching a small area on the screen.
Another thing you need to do when working with links on a page is to identify whether the link opens the referenced content in the current page or in a new page that it opens. You can do this in the Alt-text or the visible text. In the example below, notice that the alt-text for the link informs the user that clicking the link will open the referenced document in a new window
For a link to an email address, there is no alt-text. Therefore, the text included as part of the link can provide addition information. Taking the example from above, the text was changed to clearly indicate that clicking the link sends an email to the person.
If the Email address appears directly as in myname@ocps.net, then there is no need to emphasize that clicking the link will send an email to the user.