Anchor links - in page and between pages

[sarawilcox]

What

It would help content designers to clarify our position on using anchor links.

Why

On the NHS website we have in the past linked through to anchors in other pages. We also have some in-page links to anchors. Draftail in our CMS no longer allows us to do this. But this means that in some cases, we can't point users to the most helpful information, which may lie some way down a page.

The service manual makes quite heavy use of in-page links and links to anchors on other pages.

There is a question about their accessibility and usability. It would be good to have more clarity about the issues, with research evidence if possible.

We're interested in hearing about problems with anchor links and problems with not having them.

[markasrobinson]

This has come up as an issue after a developer found that linking to anchor sections on other pages (i.e. not jump links down the same page), caused screenreaders to read from the top of the target page, rather than starting at the anchored section.

The result was a potentially confusing situation where what is heard and what is visible on the screen (if partially-sighted) are different. It also raises the question of whether anchors are useful if some users will just start at the top of the page anyway.

It would be good to test the above on a few more examples/screenreaders.

[sarawilcox]

Some service manual examples:

On the text input page, we have 2 links to anchors on pages in the guidance in How to write good questions for forms: https://service-manual.nhs.uk/design-system/components/text-input

On the A to Z of NHS health writing page, we make heavy use of in-page links and links to anchors on other pages to help people find content they might not otherwise know where to find. For example, see the links under "gender", "imperial measurements" and "can't or cannot". https://service-manual.nhs.uk/content/a-to-z-of-nhs-health-writing

[joejuliernhs]

For what it's worth we would have found anchor links helpful when we transformed Down's Syndrome content fairly recently. We wanted to link to information about housing options contained in the social care guide. The problem was that the page containing the information was on was aimed at people looking for housing options for an older relative. In the end we had to remove links to our own content because it wasn't appropriate to land users at the top of the page. We didn't have time to split the social care guide page into one aimed at housing for older people and another for adults who need extra support.

[joejuliernhs]

This quite comprehensive write up around anchor links here is also worth a read https://www.nngroup.com/articles/in-page-links/

[bencullimore]

NHS.UK has evidence of users wanting "health-seeking" information journeys, not just single page visits facilitated by google. Journeys from condition information through treatments, medicines, finding services etc. which NHS.UK currently doesn't facilitate - either by not grouping/linking specific pages or not having the correct/consistent components to allow users to do this.

On the NHS.UK Information Architecture team we've found that; whilst specific navigation patterns (such as anchor links) work well on specific areas of the site - when you consider the site as a whole with users going on health-seeking journeys; moving through different types of information, having different (inconsistent) navigation components and patterns results in users being unable to find the information that they require and ultimately, them leaving the site.

In user testing, we've observed users getting stuck when moving between conditions and medicines pages which are structured differently/have different navigational components and patterns.

When faced with a new type of page information (user moving from a conditions page to a medicines page), they didn't know how to navigate the page to find the information they were tasked with finding and suggested that they would most likely leave the site and return to Google.

We ran the same information seeking test on a prototype where all topics (conditions, treatments, medicines) had the same structure and found users were able to navigate around the site successfully and find the information they required easily, no talk of leaving the site.

Takeaway being: having consistent navigation across all pages worked well.

We intend to investigate this further using different topics and routes into information (from google for instance), also working with 'subject matter' experts, teams working on specific areas.

[sarawilcox]

GOV.UK advises against anchor links: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/content-design/links

[sarawilcox]

@bencullimore Have you any more insights about anchor links since your post above? https://github.com/nhsuk/nhsuk-service-manual-community-backlog/issues/201#issuecomment-590942761.

I know that, generally, we recommend not using them on the NHS website, but people seem to navigate them OK on the service manual. Perhaps because our users are professionals moving through a consistent, fairly narrowly defined service, dropping down a page or going to a very similar page.

[SiRose]

We should agree on a strategy for how best to replace anchor links. The answer might depend partly on context each time, hence there may need to be some flexibility.

We don’t want to use anchor links anymore, for usability and accessibility reasons, but they did take users to specific sections of existing pages or pages elsewhere (or should have).

We owe users a way to replicate this functionality in a usable, accessible and achievable way. We can’t replace that impact adequately by either linking just to the target page itself, or by removing the link.

Users dropped off at the top of a page, rather than arriving at the previously anchored section, have to work out where to find relevant content. Their success will currently vary, as might their patience, interest, or will to live. Removing the link entirely gives them nothing.

Perhaps an answer could be 'targeted links'. We link to the target page, using appropriate link text, but then mention the target header (the previous anchor effectively) as the end of the link text, as something like ': visit the [semantic header] section'. That would give users a signpost for what to visit on the target page. "Find out more about XYZ: visit the 'Bananas are great' section".

We'd need to a) consider the best word for 'visit/find/look/see' etc, as not all users can look or see and some link text already starts with 'find' or 'visit' for that reason, and, b) be aware that header copy on target pages can change and our referring page links won't update to cover that (definitely not for external sites, but we get that window for NHS.UK pages at least during MVRs and transformations).

This tactic of including the target header in link text would need to be tested of course, for usability and accessibility. But the thinking is that we could still point users towards useful further content and maintain scent of information, but be specific and helpful, instead of disorienting users with anchor links that whip them elsewhere in an instant.

[Alison-Lowe]

Our current solution to making PDF documents accessible at NHSX is to recreate them as "long doc" single webpages - which relies heavily on anchor links as a "content list" to information further down the page. Removing anchor links would mean publishing multiple pages (sometimes 30-40 sections to a long academic/scientific report) - is this preferable?

[sarawilcox]

There was a conversation about anchor links on NHS.UK Slack in September: https://nhsuk.slack.com/archives/C0FS4AJ9G/p1633008574162100. "IA advise not using anchor links too (it's not great for access needs)" and they are no longer supported in the NHS.UK Wagtail CMS.

See also a conversation on the service manual public Slack instance: https://nhs-service-manual.slack.com/archives/CGB6VRX1T/p1636623865021100 "we’re looking to remove them due to inconsistent experiences and also accessibility issues. The A to Z is also in the process of being updated to remove anchor links (for reasons above). Interestingly ‘back to top’ links get very few clicks."

Anchors OK?: reassessing in-page links by NNG

We do use them in the service manual where they seem to work well. Both in page links and links between pages.