Links
Links are blue and underlined by default. If your link is at the end of a sentence or paragraph, make sure that the linked text does not include the full stop.
External links
If it’s an external link to a non Avon and Somerset Police website, make that clear in the link text. For example, ‘read advice on writing link text from [name of organisation]’. There’s no need to say explicitly that you’re linking to an external site.
Opening links in a new tab
Avoid opening links in a new tab or window. It can be disorienting — and can cause accessibility problems for people who cannot visually perceive that the new tab has opened.
If you need a link to open in a new tab — for example, to stop the user losing information they’ve entered into a form — then include the words ‘opens in new tab’ as part of the link. There’s no need to say ‘tab or window’, since opening in a new tab is the default behaviour for most browsers.
Include rel="noreferrer noopener" along with target="_blank" to reduce the risk of reverse tabnabbing. The following example shows how to do this in HTML.
<p>
<a href="#" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Link text (opens in new tab)</a>.
</p>If you’re displaying lots of links together and want to save space and avoid repetition, consider doing both of the following:
- adding a line of text before the links saying ‘The following links open in a new tab’
- including
<span class="sr-only">(opens in new tab)</span>as part of the link text, so that part of the link text is visually hidden but still accessible to screen readers.
Links to media files
[ Add information about name the file type in link. eg. link to document (PDF) ]
Published 3 May 2024
Last updated 6 August 2024