I’ve been searching for clear guidelines about how(or even if) you should present external links in an html document in order to conform with any accessibility/usability guidelines. But I can’t really find anything.
We have a client that insists that any external links(including menus/navs) should have an icon indicating that it is external.
My question is – is this necessary? What are the minimum requirements for distinguishing external links? Does there need to be a visual clue or is it possible to just indicate in the link title, or name, that if clicked it will go to another website?
Any clarification on this would be greatly appreciated as I’m struggling to advise what we should do.
The distinction between external and internal links is often made by web site owners and managers, but its relevance to users is questionable. WCAG 2.0 expresses many concerns about links: Guideline 2.4 Navigable: Provide ways to help users navigate, find content, and determine where they are. But external vs. internal is not among them.
The key issue is that the meaning and purpose of each link be available to the user. This is far more important than flagging external links, and such flagging tends to create problems rather than solve any. Flagging might be required by the site owner as a policy and caution matter, but this should not be confused with accessibility.