- Success Criterion 2.4.4
- Conformance level A
Icon-Only Link With No Accessible Name at All
2.4.4 — Link Purpose (In Context)
Scenario
Setting
A photo-sharing app's upload screen
What’s wrong
Icon links (social, edit, delete) with no accessible name, or name = "icon"/"link".
Example
<a href="/report.pdf">Click here</a> Why it matters
People who browse by links list or voice commands and need unambiguous link purposes.
How to test
Pull up a screen reader's link list: icon-only links (social, edit, delete) with no accessible name, or a name like 'icon'/'link', fail.
How to fix
The link's purpose must be clear from its accessible name (or name plus immediate programmatic context), and unique among links going to different destinations.
<a href="/report.pdf">Download the Q3 financial report (PDF)</a>Link text needs to describe its destination on its own, without relying on surrounding sentence context.
Outcome
On a photo-sharing app's upload screen, this barrier is gone for people who browse by links list or voice commands and need unambiguous link purposes — they get the same result as anyone else here.
Who is affected
People who browse by links list or voice commands and need unambiguous link purposes.
Learn more
- Understanding Understanding document (opens in a new tab)
Related scenarios
- Link’s Purpose Explained Only in Unrelated Page Text
- Image-Only Link or Button With No Accessible Name
- Repeated ‘Click Here’ Links With No Way to Tell Them Apart
- Multiple ‘Download’ Links With No File Name or Type Given
- Link Text That’s Just a Long, Meaningless Tracking URL
- ARIA Label That Overrides a Link’s Visible Text Incorrectly