Hypertext links -- how best to make these useful

Subject: Hypertext links -- how best to make these useful
From: Fiona Hanington <fiona -dot- hanington -at- ericsson -dot- com>
To: "techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com" <techwr-l -at- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:12:15 -0400

Can anyone point me to some good guidelines on how to structure and phrase hypertext links so that the user has no doubts about clicking? Ie, so that users can guess, from the way the link is phrased/structured/presented/formatted, just what type of info they'll get at the other end of it?

I seem to recall that Visio's online help was pretty good in this regard.
Conceptual links were "tell me about..."
Task info was "how do i..."
Examples were "show me..."

I've been searching the web for some good resources or guidelines on this, but so far haven't found anything too useful. One problem is that the term "link" is too prevalent out there on the internet...

Thanks! Please include me directly in your reply as I am on digest.

Fiona

fiona dot hanington at ericsson dot com

---------------------
Fiona Hanington
Customer Product Information, IP Neworks
Ericsson



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