Say I’m looking at your library’s website on my phone because I need to call and ask about something. I find the number. Awesome!
Except I tap it and…nothing.
It’s just text.
So now I’m supposed to remember the number while I switch over to the phone app? Or carefully select it, copy it, open the phone app and paste it there? Maybe. Depending on how cooperative my phone is feeling at that particular moment.
Why? The phone number is already on a phone.
This is such a small thing. Which is probably why it annoys me so much when websites get it wrong.
If you put a phone number on your website, make it clickable.
Make the number do something
A clickable phone number lets me tap it and call. Done.
That’s what a tel: link is for:
<a href="tel:+12165551234">(216) 555-1234</a>And this is not some new bit of HTML that nobody has gotten around to implementing yet. The standard for telephone links, RFC 3966, dates back to 2004.
The standard also recommends using the actual telephone number as the linked text, which makes sense. If I see (216) 555-1234, I already know what I’m about to do when I activate it.
Is this an accessibility requirement?
There is no WCAG success criterion that says every phone number on a website must be clickable. But accessibility and usability don’t suddenly stop mattering just because you can’t point to a specific WCAG failure.
Think about what the unlinked version asks someone to do: remember a string of numbers, switch applications, re-enter those numbers accurately or manage the fiddly business of selecting and copying text on a small screen.
Some people are going to have more difficulty with those tasks than others. And there’s no reason to make any of them do it.
You probably don’t need to know HTML
Most content management systems let you make a phone number clickable exactly the same way you make other text into a link.
Select the phone number. Click the link button. Instead of entering something beginning with https://, enter:
tel:+12165551234
That’s it. Seriously. That’s the fix.
Go look at your website
Find the phone numbers. Try tapping them.
Do they actually do anything?
If not, you have a very small usability problem that is also very easy to fix. Those are my favorite kind (and maybe yours!).
Half way through reading this newsletter, I went into LibApps and updated all of the phone numbers on our website. They even have "telephone" as a link option. Thank you!