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Number of posts in this thread: 15 (In chronological order)

From: steven
Date: Tue, Oct 05 2010 7:33AM
Subject: Link format: to underline or not
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Most of us here are likely to be familiar with the following points of view:



. People are familiar when something is a link, when it is
underlined (and generally coloured blue).

. People with visual difficulties find it harder to read text that
is underlined.



I generally am in favour of making text as easy to read as possible, on the
basis that text links are generally assistive to non linked text and
therefore are often of secondary importance. And as much as I agree with
blue underlined text being commonly associated as links, I consider them to
be leftovers of a by-gone era that has moved on, where search engines once
favoured keyword stuffing and popup windows and framesets ruled the
internet.



What are other peoples thoughts?

From: Jared Smith
Date: Tue, Oct 05 2010 7:48AM
Subject: Re: Link format: to underline or not
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On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 7:11 AM, steven wrote:
> I generally am in favour of making text as easy to read as possible, on the
> basis that text links are generally assistive to non linked text and
> therefore are often of secondary importance.

I disagree. Any slight decrease in readability of a few underlined
words of a link is far outweighed by the benefits of having the links
clearly distinguishable via the underline. Large sections of
underlined text are more difficult to read, but I haven't seen
anything that indicates that a succinct, underlined link causes
readability issues. On the other hand, there's plenty to indicate that
not underlining links can cause usability issues in many cases. Using
color alone to distinguish links is not usually sufficient. Consider
small screen devices, touch screen devices, users with low vision,
users that override page colors, color-blindness, new users that
expect links to be underlined, etc.

If you don't underline links by default, be sure to consider the
significant requirements necessary to make those links truly
accessible. See http://webaim.org/blog/wcag-2-0-and-link-colors/ for
more details. In short, you must have sufficient contrast with
non-link text and you must introduce a non-color designator on both
mouse hover and keyboard focus.

> And as much as I agree with
> blue underlined text being commonly associated as links, I consider them to
> be leftovers of a by-gone era that has moved on

I have a tough time believing that the default styling and
presentation of the most significant element in HTML, the hypertext
link, is somehow faux pas or a relic of yesteryear. Considering the
proliferation of touch screen devices, I strongly suspect that
non-underlined links will instead soon become the leftovers of a
by-gone era.

Jared Smith
WebAIM

From: steven
Date: Tue, Oct 05 2010 8:48AM
Subject: Re: Link format: to underline or not
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I agree with your counter points Jared, but should we really still be
encouraging copy text to be broken up with high contrasting links?

Look at the web page you referred to as an example. By default, the contrast
of the links in the copy disrupt the hierarchy of headers and grammatical
emphasis within the copy itself (it clearly does not read as well as a
traditional printed text document for example). Not significantly, but the
links (being styled as per the menu) semantically draw the menu and copy
together (visually) ... I don't think that is the correct thing to do.
Encouraging this sort of practice is also not going to help us truely
separate content from structure, if the structure is being merged into the
content in such a way, surely?

Or maybe I am being too picky?

Steven

From: steven
Date: Tue, Oct 05 2010 9:00AM
Subject: Re: Link format: to underline or not
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Whose links preference should in fact be the default? Mine as the developer?
Other developers? The browser developers? Should there even be a default? We
are all users of the internet afterall and everyone is who I am trying to
cater for ...

Maybe we need to introduce a link to toggle link styling, as per those font
size links that are often made available!?

Steven

From: Simius Puer
Date: Tue, Oct 05 2010 9:09AM
Subject: Re: Link format: to underline or not
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Font sizing is offered by developers who like to make their text really
really tiny and no-one can read it ;]

Any decent website leaves the font size well alone so the user will get
their default size (which is in their control).

I know tons of people will disagree with me but c'est la vie...if you do the
math, it all adds up..."don't make users think".

From: steven
Date: Tue, Oct 05 2010 9:24AM
Subject: Re: Link format: to underline or not
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Simius, if I opt to go along with consensus, then I would definitely stick
to default links as you say.

Sometimes however, I just think the steps being made by the industry (and me
along with it) are so small that they are still far from what is wanted by
us all. Ever the pessimistic optimist.

Steven

From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Tue, Oct 05 2010 9:39AM
Subject: Re: Link format: to underline or not
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the real solution is not for web designers to code style switchers, skip links, text resizers etc, but for browsers to have clear ways for users to choose defaults and overrides, and for users to set up their browsing environment accordingly. isn't that the idea of css? author suggests presentation, but user can override if needed/desired?

p
--
Patrick H. Lauke


On 5 Oct 2010, at 15:57, "steven" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> Whose links preference should in fact be the default? Mine as the developer?
> Other developers? The browser developers? Should there even be a default? We
> are all users of the internet afterall and everyone is who I am trying to
> cater for ...
>
> Maybe we need to introduce a link to toggle link styling, as per those font
> size links that are often made available!?
>
> Steven
>
>
>
>

From: steven
Date: Tue, Oct 05 2010 9:54AM
Subject: Re: Link format: to underline or not
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I think this is where I have real trouble with current standards (including
HTML5 and CSS3).

I also agree that a user should be able to override presentation, but if we
still place links in copy (content) aren't we still mixing content with
function. A link is a function which provides a 'means to get to content'...
and not in fact 'content itself'!? Although current browsers, standards and
implementation suggests that is fine and we often see links made to work
that way, in the same way we placed structure to content using tables and
transparent gifs. Why is that really okay? If we really want to separate
content from function.

Steven

From: Jared Smith
Date: Tue, Oct 05 2010 10:06AM
Subject: Re: Link format: to underline or not
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On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 9:49 AM, steven wrote:
> Why is that really okay? If we really want to separate
> content from function.

Who has ever suggested that you should separate content from function
on the web? Or content from structure, as your previous message
suggests. The web is all about function and structure - and
particularly links. Is it not authored in *hypertext* *markup*
language. Hypertext = links. Markup = structure. Both of these are
generally intended to be visually offset from standard content
otherwise they are useless.

What good would the web be if you tried to separate out content and
structure and function. It certainly would be neither useful nor
accessible.

I think perhaps you may be confusing recommendations that you should
separate content/functionality from *design*, a noble objective that
actually does support better accessibility.

Jared

From: steven
Date: Tue, Oct 05 2010 10:27AM
Subject: Re: Link format: to underline or not
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Indeed ... I slipped my tongue when I said "function" instead of "design".

That said, HTML5 does attempt to help with this by providing a semantic way
of differentiating between content and menu ... this itself, if done
properly, would actually result in being able to separate function from
content too ... though I don't think that it would be wrong, nor make it
useless or inaccessible.

If I were to say that function and content should be handled/delivered
separately, then yes, accessing the content could be deemed inaccessible.
But as databases aren't deemed inaccessible from the content and functions
they deliver to a browser's html, nor HTML5 with separating content and
menus, I think extending this to separating links from content to also be a
logical consideration. That way, a function (or browser setting) could
control whether content is just that ... or whether they want to find some
additional context to the content (rather than forcing links in the flow of
content - which itself is accessible, but adds an extra burden to people who
just want to access the content rather than tab through more links to get to
the menu for example)!?

Anyway, this is all wishful thinking I know, regardless of how it should be
done. We are the start of doing the right thing, so we can hardly be
surprised at all the problems we have.

If only I could convince our clients that their users' browsers (and there
own) should dictate the appearance of the websites we design for them,
rather than paying us to try and guarantee a particular look.

Steven

From: Steve Green
Date: Tue, Oct 05 2010 10:39AM
Subject: Re: Link format: to underline or not
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In the ideal world that would happen, but after more than 15 years there's
no sign of browser vendors doing so. In all the years I've been doing user
testing I've met dozens of people who would benefit from customising their
browser settings, but a tiny number who knew that they could, let alone knew
how to do so.

Maybe browser vendors should ship their products with an accessibility
toolbar that contains all these options. The toolbar could be displayed by
default so people could see the options are there. Anyone who doesn't need
them could then hide the toolbar.

Until then I don't see any reason why website designers should not provide
these features in the website. What good does it do to say that someone else
should fix the problem if that person persists in not fixing it?

Steve Green
Director
Test Partners Ltd

From: steven
Date: Wed, Oct 06 2010 5:09AM
Subject: Re: Link format: to underline or not
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"What good does it do to say that someone else should fix the problem if
that person persists in not fixing it?"

If we fix the problem on a website by website basis, we're not fixing
'accessibility' at the right level though. There are billions and trillions
of website that would need fixing with that approach (where we currently
are), for them to all be adequately accessible. That isn't economical and it
certainly isn't efficient, hence most websites are not adequately
accessible.

As seems to be agreed, fixing at the browser level is going to make the
impact of making the web adequately accessible, simply on the mathematical
basis that there are few browsers to fix in order to fix a larger number of
websites. So where does this really put us as developers? Should we really
still be adding extra content to html pages to compensate for lack of
browser accessibility features? in the same way we formerly did when we
added transparent gifs, nested tables and popup windows (which have now been
shunned, but only in hindsight - something I think we should fix now,
without needing to wait 10 years again to repeat).

Just think of all that time spent, building the inaccessible internet
monster we have today, that we are now hell bent on slaying. Can we really
not learn from our previous mistake?

Steven

From: Steve Green
Date: Wed, Oct 06 2010 8:57AM
Subject: Re: Link format: to underline or not
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I agree with you, but I see no indication that the browser vendors intend to
address the problem any time soon, and perhaps they never will. Much as I
hate state interference, one solution would be for the EU or US Government
to mandate an accessibility page in the same way that they forced Microsoft
to add a browser ballot page.

If these things don't happen (and I suspect they won't) what else can we do
other than build these features into our websites?

Steve

From: steven
Date: Wed, Oct 06 2010 10:24AM
Subject: Re: Link format: to underline or not
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" If these things don't happen (and I suspect they won't) what else can we
do other than build these features into our websites?"

This is going to sound controversial, but I'm just voicing out an extremist
thought here ...

Taking currently inaccessible websites as a point of reference (basic
examples of what these typically are follow further on), because they are
already inaccessible (hence it wouldn't be an issue to have to consider
making them accessible, or more accessible), could we not start making them
more accessible with better browsers in mind (think beyond HTML5 article,
section and menu tags) and ignore things like adding skip links at the start
of pages in anticipation that this will be fixed at some point in the future
by the browsers/os developers. I know, thus far, this is like choosing to
ignore fixing the problem, but ...

... by taking excessive and inaccessible content like JavaScript menus and
nasty image menus out of current pages, and restraining ourselves from just
replacing them with additional excessive controls such as font sizing and
skip links, the pages can be made better (although in need of future
browser/os support to introduce better user controls) than the current pages
if not perfect (which is ultimately fixing the problem, albeit to a smaller
degree). Obviously, adding font sizing and skips links has an immediate
advantage on a website by website basis (no having to wait for browsers to
change - if we think they will at all), but ultimately I see all such
features (like font sizing and skip links) needing to be taking out again in
the future in the same way we've done by replacing tabled websites with
divs.

I think one step forward in accessibility by 100,000 website developers,
instead of 2 steps forward, is still stepping forward with accessibility.
When browsers catch up, they could instantaneously provide better
accessibility to those 100,000 websites and another 10,000,000 (which
needn't have had much extra accessibility work done, if at all)
instantaneously ... whereas stepping 2 steps forward, could likely mean
10,000,000 websites instantaneously updated by a few browser updates, where
as the other 100,000 websites need to undo there intermediary changes
(despite the best intentions of doing so).

Basically, I think our hard work would affect a minority of websites on the
internet, where as a quick browser updated could dwarf our efforts by the
sheer number of websites they could effect in an instance and without a real
cost to the owners of websites, and possibly require our websites to be
changed again because we over-compensated.

Maybe I am worrying too much?

Steven

From: Rimantas Liubertas
Date: Thu, Oct 07 2010 2:48AM
Subject: Re: Link format: to underline or not
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> Font sizing is offered by developers who like to make their text really
> really tiny and no-one can read it ;]
>
> Any decent website leaves the font size well alone so the user will get
> their default size (which is in their control).
>
> I know tons of people will disagree with me but c'est la vie...if you do the
> math, it all adds up..."don't make users think".

How about stepping out of your fantasy world, going to one of the users and
asking him: "please, show me, how did you set up your default font size?".

And there you will be enlightened.


Regards,
Rimantas
--
http://rimantas.com/