Question

My web application uses a lot of <a href="#">Perform client script action</a> anchor links which are used for scripting (a habit I picked-up from my days as a Dreamweaver user well over 10 years ago) and now I’m beginning to question if this is necessary.

I don’t actually know why <a href="#"> is used in the first place – my guess is the presence of the href attribute causes browsers to apply the :link and :visited psuedo-classes which simplifies stylesheets. It also makes the browser implicitly apply the cursor: pointer property which may be desirable.

I use jQuery (after a brief stint with MooTools) and the links work just as well without the href="#" attribute and value, so should I just remove the attribute entirely and modify my stylesheet to compensate for the removal of the :link psuedo-class? Is there anything else I might be missing, any kind of semi-documented voodoo that the href attribute imbues the anchor element?

Answer 1

<a> stands for anchor

If you include the [href] attribute on an <a> element, it is an anchor that points to a location, which means that you could go to a new page, a particular fragment of the current page (hence the # being called the fragment identifier), or a particular fragment of a new page.

<a> elements without an [href] attribute were historically assigned a [name] attribute, which could be used as the destination of the fragment identifier. Browsers later added support for linking to any item’s [id] attribute, and this is now the preferred method for linking to a document fragment.

What does this mean for standalone <a> elements?

An a[href] element is a link (which is why they are matched with :link in css). links are clickable. An a element without the [href] attribute is otherwise just a placeholder for where a link might otherwise have been placed, and not clickable, nor are they in the tabbing order of the page.

If you want your links to be keyboard navigable which is important for accessibility (WAI-ARIA), you’ll need to do one of the following:

• change the element to <button type="button">
• keep the [href] attribute
• add [tabindex="0"] and one of [role="button"] or [role="link"] (and possibly some styling)

More information about the [role] attribute can be found in the Roles Model section of the WAI-ARIA docs.

Changing the markup

If you don’t have a reason to keep the [href] attribute, you might as well be using a <button> element:

<button type="button">
        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The [type] attribute is used to make the element a generic button, otherwise <button> will default to [type="submit"], which may not be desirable as it could trigger form submission.

If you can’t use a <button> (usually occurs when the inner markup must contain a <div>) you can fake a <button> using:

<div role="button" tabindex="0">Some clickable text</div>

You’ll need to listen for keypress events and trigger click events for Enter and Space.

Keeping the markup

If you’re keeping the <a> element and its [href] attribute, there are a number of options for its value.

A real link

E.x.

• <a href="/some/location/for/users/without/js">
• <a href="#document-fragment">

If you need to provide support for users with JS disabled, you might as well direct them to a page that performs equivalent functionality without JS.

By extension, this also includes providing document fragment links to link to the content within the same document. For example, a toggleable region may be marked up as:

<a href="#more" class="toggleable">Read More</a>
<div id="more">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet</div>

So that with JS the region can be collapsed and expanded, and without JS the link will take the user to the appropriate content on the page.

A dud href

E.x.

• <a href="#">
• <a href="javascript:void(0)">
• <a href="about:blank">

If you’re preventing the default behavior behind-the-scenes in JavaScript, and you’re not supporting users with JS disabled, you can use a “dud” href value to keep the link in the tabbing order and automatically enable Enter to trigger the click event. You should add [role="button"] as semantically the <a> tag is no longer being used as a link, but as a button.

<a href="#" role="button">Some clickable text</a>