Success Criterion 2.4.4
Conformance level A

Duplicate Link Names Pointing to Different Destinations

2.4.4 — Link Purpose (In Context)

Scenario

Setting

A survey tool's question builder

What’s wrong

Ambiguous duplicated names to different destinations within same context ("Details" ×10 in identical cells).

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: identical link names ('Details' repeated many times) going to different destinations within the same context are ambiguous and 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 survey tool's question builder, this barrier is gone for people who browse by links list or voice commands and need unambiguous link purposes — they can complete the task without hitting this wall.

Who is affected