On kettles, pots and link underlines
June 13th, 2005
Clicking on a site my wife left open in my browser the other night ( London Zoo , designed by Other Media), I came across Tom Smith’s The Other Blog . Nice work, Mr Smith, and thanks for the link to Designing embraceable change , a great article by Jared Spool. Add The Other Blog to your feed reader now .
Something Tom wrote about link underlines bothered me, however, and I just can’t let it go. In a post about his blog’s redesign:
In a Tuftesque “remove non data ink” mood, I removed the underlines from links. I figure anyone reading this blog will have a fair idea of what a link is… and to me it just looks cleaner.
Trouble is, link underlines are data ink, at least to people with some form of colour blindness: roughly 5% of us, I believe. It’s not sufficient to say “my links are a different colour.” The W3C’s web accessibility guidelines are pretty clear on this:
Ensure that text and graphics are understandable when viewed without color.
If color alone is used to convey information, people who cannot differentiate between certain colors and users with devices that have non-color or non-visual displays will not receive the information.
So I was just about to indulge myself with this self-righteous little rant, when I realised I couldn’t exactly have a go at Tom’s kettle without shining up my pot first.
You see, in order to get going quickly with this blog, I used the otherwise excellent Blix theme for WordPress from King Cosmonaut . I simply unpacked the files and started writing. Only now, weeks into it, did I stop to think that my links are almost indistinguishable from their surrounding text, because they rely on colour alone, not underlines.
So a quick edit to my CSS file and links are, hopefully, a little clearer. In reality, there is a lot more I need to do, but this is a start. I really want to design my own custom theme. There, I have said it, now I am committed.
What do we think of the changes? More distinct, more accessible links, yes? And hopefully only slightly less pretty than before? Be honest - you didn’t even notice the difference did you?
Bonus link: check your site - how does it appear to users with common forms of colour blindness? - with Visicheck .
Entry Filed under: Design
5 Comments Add your own
1. Rosa Say | June 14th, 2005 at 7:18 am
Yes! Yes! Yes! I did indeed notice the difference instantly, and I cheered for you!
Fortunately I’m not color blind, and it’s a good point I never thought of, however I vote for underlined links because they stand out better and are more universally understood.
We need to remind ourselves that it’s always about the customer, and the overwhelming majority of the world is just learning to read websites, blogs, and link-peppered emails.
As you always say Adrian, we need to communicate better!
Rosa
2. Adrian | June 14th, 2005 at 11:30 am
Interesting. So do you read my blog in your RSS reader or do you click through to the site itself to read posts?
Call me old fashioned: I tend to skim posts in my RSS reader, but anything I really want to read, I enjoy clicking through to the site itself to read the post in context.
What do you think of the text size? I like it - not too “designer” small, not “spidery” large, but what do you think?
Anyone else?
3. Johnnie Moore | June 14th, 2005 at 11:40 am
Good point,Adrian. I’d better rethink next time I’m tinkering with my CSS.
BTW, in my newsreader, Sharpreader, links aren’t underlined. I guess that’s a default.
4. Lisa Haneberg | June 16th, 2005 at 1:02 am
Adrian - You may have noticed that I changed the colors of my blog recently. It was because I received a note from a color blind reader who told me that the color choices I selected, green and blue, were terrible for many color blind folks. So while I have not chosen to underline links, I do think we have a responsibility to ensure we do not inadvertently cause problems for our readers.
5. Rosa Say | June 16th, 2005 at 4:39 am
Aloha Adrian, to answer your questions …
I only use BlogLines (my RSS reader) to let me know when blogs are updated: I always click in for the full effect, especially because I want to read the comments too.
I like your text size, for I agree that too small text is too difficult to deal with.
Adrian, what I haven’t figured out for you, is how I pick up your trackbacks when I link back to you.
Rosa
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