Using too many hyperlinks can be distracting, or overwhelming, and can make it difficult to work out what is important.
Any hyperlink you include should be useful but think quality not quantity.
Adding a hyperlink to emails and webpages is a helpful way of leading people to supplementary online information.
Hyperlinks are especially useful in reducing duplication of content and leading people to online portals to:
- request a service
- report an issue
- make a payment
When linking to sources of online content that are not managed by North Ayrshire Council, we have no control over whether this content is moved or removed. When this does happen hyperlinks break, resulting in a potentially negative user experience.
Reduce potential broken links…
The North Ayrshire Council website redesign project involves moving all content (webpages and documents) into a new content management system. As a result, some of the webpage and all of the document file paths (urls) will change.
To reduce the likelihood of broken links in documents, IT Services is requesting that content owners are hyper vigilant and check for and remove any hyperlinks that are currently broken, or have the potential to break.
Please take some time to review your source documents and:
- Remove hyperlinks to webpages and other documents that begin with https://www.north-ayrshire.gov.uk/
- Remove other unnecessary hyperlinks.
- Check remaining hyperlinks are not broken.
- Check for accessibility and readability – Digital accessibility guidance is available (common issues include text not left aligned, use of italics, text underlines, insufficient colour contrast).
- Request a document update via the IT Portal – please provide the source document – not a PDF.