Accessibility: Meaningful Hyperlinks

By Jamie Witman, OEN

This guide assumes that you have created an OEN Manifold account, have admin access to the backend, have created a project, and ingested a text or plan to ingest a text, or edit or create a text using the Manifold Editor. If you do not have Project Creator status, please review the Request an Account form.

For help creating a project and adding a text, see the Creating a Project Quick Guide.

What are Meaningful Hyperlinks and why are they important for accessibility?

Meaningful hyperlinks are hyperlinks that use plain language to describe the purpose of a hyperlink within a document, webpage, or application. They are both descriptive and concise so as not to overwhelm the user.

Here are some examples of links that may be unclear:

• Click here is not meaningful because it does not tell the user where the link will take them.
• Using the actual URL (https://youtu.be/grrx2Lva7T0) is also not very meaningful. It is too long and convoluted for a user to navigate and know where the link will take them.

Using meaningful hyperlinks are key for navigating web pages, websites, or applications with a screen reader like NVDA, JAWS, or VoiceOver.

How to use Meaningful Hyperlinks in Manifold?

Manifold gives you the option to author within the platform as well as ingest pre-authored content from sources like Word Documents or Google Docs. This guide will go over how to implement Meaningful Hyperlinks appropriately both in your own Docs and within the Manifold Editor.

How to set up Meaningful Hyperlinks in a Word Doc

The process for creating Meaningful Hyperlinks in Word Docs is very easy. Once you’ve added your text to your Word Doc, you highlight the text you want to hyperlink, right click and you should see an option to Hyperlink.

A new modal window will appear to add in your URL.

Add the URL you want the text to link to and click OK.

Remember that the text you are hyperlinking should be descriptive and concise.

How to set up Meaningful Hyperlinks in a Google Doc

The process for creating Meaningful Hyperlinks in Google Docs is also very easy. Once you’ve added your text to your Google Doc, you highlight the text you want to hyperlink, right click and you should see an option to Insert link.

A new modal window will appear to add in your URL.

Add the URL you want the text to link to and click Apply.

Remember that the text you are hyperlinking should be descriptive and concise.

How to set up Meaningful Hyperlinks in the Manifold Editor

To get started adding meaningful hyperlinks using the Manifold Editor, first navigate to the Text and Section you wish to edit or add to. Then click on the Pencil icon to open up the Manifold Editor.

Highlight the text you want to hyperlink, then click on the link icon in the upper right corner of the Editor.

A new modal window will appear to add in your URL.

Add the URL you want the text to link to and click ADD.

Checking Your Work

If you ever want to test that your accessibility features, Accessibility Bookmarklets and the WAVE browser extensions are good tools.

“OEN Manifold Community Guide: Accessibility Meaningful Hyperlinks” is licensed under a CC BY NC 4.0 license. Last updated June 2025. It is adapted from “Manifold Key Concepts for Accessibility: Meaningful Hyperlinks” By Elliott Stevens at University of Washington and licensed under a CC BY NC 4.0 license.