Links

Links

Description

Links (a.k.a, Hyperlinks) take users from their current page to another page, site or file (PDF, Word, Excel, etc.).

Many of the KU CMS Sections include options for single links and/or lists of links. Links can also be added to pages via the WYSIWYG Editor within Body 1 - General Content > General Content.

How To's

Adding Links in Sections

Links in sections are added within the content form and include two fields: Link URL and Link Text. See the documentation for a specific section for detailed instructions.

Adding Links in WYSIWYG Sections

  1. Highlight the text you wish to link
  2. Select the Link icon in the WYSIWYG toolbar
  3. In the Link field start typing to link to another page on your site or paste in a URL or node number
  • NOTE: Do not paste in the full URL of a page on your site
  1. To link to an email enter mailto:email@ku.edu
  2. To link to a phone number enter tel:+1-XXX-XXX-XXXX
  3. To link to a PDF or document select the Open IMCE file browser link. See IMCE File Browser for information and instructions.
  4. Leave the ID field blank unless you are setting up an anchor link
  5. Leave the Relationship field blank
  6. Only if linking to a URL outside of KU select the Open in new window checkbox (see Accessibility below)
  7. Enter a title if you want the link to display a title when a user hovers over the link
  8. Save

Do Not Use Absolute URLs for Internal Pages

IMPORTANT: Absolute URLs on a Sunflower development site will break with the site launches

  • Create links using relative URLs for internal pages
    • Relative URLs:  /yourpagename or /node/#
  • Absolute URLs will break when the site goes live.
    • Absolute URLs: https://yoursitename.cms-dev.ku.edu/yourpagename
  • Absolute URLs are necessary for external links, but should not be used for internal links.

How to Create Relative URLs?

  1. Type the page title in the link field and the page will appear in a dropdown menu. Once you select the page from the dropdown menu, Drupal puts in the relative path for you.
  2. If you know the specific path (e.g., /yourpagename) or node number (e.g., /node/427) for your page, you can type either of those in manually.

URLs as Link Titles

  • Exposed URLs as link titles are not allowed in Sunflower
    • Text must be used for the link title instead
  • Link titles must be descriptive and tell the user succinctly what resource they will find if they follow the link.
  • Exception: Bibliographic Citations

Screen readers read the entire URL letter-by-letter. URLs are often quite long and contain information that may be confusing or irrelevant to the user, which is both unpleasant and time consuming.

Broken Links

  • Broken Links should not exist on KU websites
  • Broken links damage the user experience and tell users that the information on your site may not be reliable.
  • Your site’s credibility relies on all the information on your site being accurate and up-to-date.

Email Links

  • Email links in text should expose the email address
  • Link URL formatting: 
    • mailto:bigjay@ku.edu
  • Buttons that link to email must indicate that the button is an email link

In Text

  • In text, email links should be the email address, not the person or department's name.
    • Good Email Link Title: "Contact Big Jay at bigjay@ku.edu."
    • Bad Email Link Title: "Contact our mascot Big Jay."

In Buttons and Button-Style Links

Recommended link titles for emails in buttons and button-style links:

  • Email Us
  • Email [dept/org name] – Example: Email CMS Guide
  • Email [individual name] – Example: Email Big Jay
  • Email [dept/org title] – Example: Email Program Director
  • Email [individual name, title] – Example: Email Big Jay, Program Director

Phone Numbers

  • Phone numbers in Sunflower must be links
  • Phone URL formatting:
    • tel:+1-XXX-XXX-XXXX

Add Phone Number Links:

  1. Highlight the phone number
  2. Copy the phone number to your clipboard
  3. Select the link icon in the WYSIWYG options
  4. Type "tel:"
  5. Paste the number so your link URL reads: "tel:+1-XXX-XXX-XXXX"
  6. Add the “+1” in front of the number so the URL path looks like: "tel:+1-XXX-XXX-XXXX"
    1. The “+1” is the international dialing format. This ensures that no matter where they are calling from, a user will dial the correct number.
  7. Save

Support: Google Web Fundamentals: Click to Call

File Type Not in Document Link Titles

  • Links to PDFs, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Video or Audio files must include the file type in parenthesis
    • Example PDF document title (pdf)
    • Example PowerPoint document title (.ppt)
    • Example Word document title (.docx)
    • Example video file title (.mov)
    • Example audio file title (.mp3)

Reason: If a link does anything other than go to another web page, such as linking to a PDF file or launching an audio or video player, email message, or another application, make sure the link explicitly indicates what will happen.

Links to Drupal 7

All pages, images, and documents on your Drupal 7 site must be moved to Sunflower. Once the site goes live the links will break.

To avoid broken links and missing content, be sure to manually migrate all image and document resources to your new site.

Non-Descriptive Link Titles

  • Link titles must be descriptive - meaning the link title tells users what they will find if they follow the link.

Common Examples of Non-descriptive Links Titles

  • Click here
  • Here
  • Read more
  • More info
  • Learn more
  • Visit website
  • Explore
  • Watch on YouTube

Incorrect: For more information, click here.

Correct: For more information, see KU CMS Guide.

Incorrect: See KU Admissions website for more information.

Correct: See KU Admissions for more information.

Incorrect: Learn more

Correct: Our Research

Incorrect: this article

Correct: Single-family home construction in Lawrence is at its lowest point in the last 66 years

NOTE - In most cases, the page title of the destination page is the best link title

Specified Non-Descriptive Link Titles Allowed on Select Sections

A feature has been added that makes it possible to use a specified list of approved non-descriptive link titles on select KU Sunflower sections. See Specified Non-Descriptive Link Titles Allowed on Select Sections for details.

Links Open in Same Window

  • Links should open in the same window. 

  • Strongly Not Recommended: Links to sites outside the ku.edu domain may be set to open in a new window but the behavior must be consistent site-wide.

It is a standard user experience (UX) best practice for links to open in the same window to ensure that the user is not confused by unexpected browser behavior.

Link Titles

  • Title links so users can scan link text quickly to navigate to the page they're looking for
  • Link titles should allow users accessing your site via a screen reader to navigate your site effectively.
  • Begin links with the information-carrying word, because users often scan through the first word or two of links to compare them.
  • Effective link titles allow search engines to index links and their landing pages correctly, thus improving search engine results (a.k.a., your SEO).

Link Checking Resources

Because of the large number of links found on most sites, it is time consuming to check them page-by-page. Here are some online tools to help you check the status of links across your website:

Link Checkers for Live Sites

Link Checkers for Sites in Development

Accessibility

  • Links should make sense out of context. Phrases such as "Click here," "More," "Click for details," and so on are ambiguous when read out of context.
  • Users must be able to navigate to and select each link using the keyboard alone.
  • Most screen readers say "link" before each link so links do not need to include "link" in the link text, because all users already know that the link is a link.
  • Do not say "link" or "link to" in alt text.
  • Place the distinguishing information of links at the beginning of a link.
  • Links should never be empty. An empty link can be navigated to, but if it does not present any content it can be very confusing for keyboard and screen reader users.

Linking to Inaccessible Content

Linking to Inaccessible Content on KU Sites

All KU CMS sites will be required to address all inaccessible content (PDFs/documents, videos, websites, etc.) during the migration to KU Sunflower.

If you discover you are providing a link to inaccessible content on another KU-owned website, including Drupal 7 sites, please reach out to the site owner and kindly request they remediate the document or webpage. Doing so will help the site owner prioritize inaccessible documents and pages that others in the KU community are pointing to.

In most cases, when links are found to inaccessible KU-owned content, updates can be made directly by the content owner. Or, the originating site can simply point to an accessible webpage instead of the inaccessible content.

When possible, we recommend the best practice of linking to the webpage where a document exists rather than linking to the document itself. Documents change frequently. By linking to the page where the document is hosted, you deliver your users to the correct content even when the owner updates the document.

KU CMS Sunflower sites will not be allowed to launch if they provide links to inaccessible content on other KU-owned sites.

Linking to Inaccessible Content on External Sites

KU CMS sites are responsible for the journeys they provide their users. That includes linking to inaccessible PDFs/documents and webpage content on external websites (i.e., outside the ku.edu domain). As a site admin, you should do your due diligence to review any PDFs/documents or webpages you are linking out to for accessibility issues that could impact your users.

If you discover you are linking to inaccessible content on a KU website, see “Linking to Inaccessible Content on KU Sites” above.

If you discover you are linking to inaccessible content on an external site (i.e., not in the ku.edu domain), here are our recommendations:

  1. Unless the linked content is mission-critical, remove all links to inaccessible PDFs/websites. See CMS Guide: Documents for instructions on how to check the accessibility of PDFs.
  2. If the linked content is mission-critical, we strongly recommend working to find accessible alternative materials that serve the same purposes and link to those instead.
  3. If you have no other options and must continue to host the links to inaccessible PDFs/websites, we strongly encourage you to reach out to the external content owner and ask that they update their PDFs/websites for accessibility. 

Specified Non-Descriptive Link Titles Allowed on Select Sections

A feature has been added that makes it possible to use a specified list of approved non-descriptive link titles on select KU Sunflower sections. See Specified Non-Descriptive Link Titles Allowed on Select Sections for details.

Support