How to fix Lighthouse "Links do not have a discernible name"

Question

Lighthouse suggesting to fix my a href text

I have a html like that

<a href="https://twitter.com/@some-name-here" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="social-icon twitter grayscale"></a> 

What is really happens here is I just displaying the image inside a href by using css class:

.social-icon.twitter {   background: url('../images/logo-twitter.png') no-repeat center center; } 

I can't do <a....>Twitter</a> as in that case the displayed text will destroy the view.

I can't think of anything else like just putting a span with a text inside my a and make it hidden e.g <a....><span class="hide">Twitter</span></a> but wonder if there is any proper solution?

Any recommendations on that?

Answer 1

If want to implement this in react app then, We need to add aria-label property to <a> tag.

Before:

<a href={`https://${ this.props.info }`} target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">    <i className="fa fa-circle fa-stack-2x"></i>    <i className={ `fa fa-${ this.props.icon } fa-stack-1x fa-inverse` }></i> </a> 

After:

<a href={`https://${ this.props.info }`} aria-label={`${ this.props.name }`} target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">    <i className="fa fa-circle fa-stack-2x"></i>    <i className={ `fa fa-${ this.props.icon } fa-stack-1x fa-inverse` }></i> </a> 

Answer 2

For accessibility reasons (required for screen readers) links must contain a text or have description in aria-label attribute. In many use cases like yours you don't want to add any text in a link, but instead use as image or any graphic element wrapper.

Fix it by adding aria-label="Twitter" to your a element, like

<a href="https://twitter.com/@some-name-here" aria-label="Twitter" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="social-icon twitter grayscale"></a>