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Re: Color contrast in links -- is it important?

for

From: tedd
Date: Apr 22, 2007 7:10AM

At 12:58 PM -0400 4/21/07, Randall Pope2 wrote:
>As a low vision user, my suggestion of the four states of the links in
>regards to color contrast:
>
>Link = very important. The underline does help but sometimes I cannot tell
>the difference from a content underline from the link underline. Many
>times, I have click on underline words only to find out that is not a link
>after clicking on it several times, not to mention of being annoyed. Plus
>the color contrast between the link and the content does help a lot.
>
>Visited = important. Many times I get confused which page that I visit
>because the website does not offer a different color. Also a contrasted
>color background is a big help in finding the visited links.
>
>Active = not important. I must confess that I don't quite understand the
>purpose of having this function or make it work for accessible reason.
>Someone may need to advise me on this one.
>
>Hover = very important. This feature really helps me assure that my mouse
>in the right position before clicking. Without the hover many times I did
>not have the mouse in proper position which resulted going to the wrong
>page.

Randall:

Considering that there are simply not enough shades of black to show
the differences between the different states of links, it's my
conclusion it's really not possible to comply with WCAG guidelines on
this matter.

However, there are other techniques one can employ to highlight
differences in link states. I would like to get your opinion of the
ones presented here:

http://f6design.com/journal/2007/04/14/styling-links/

Do any of these meet your needs?

Cheers,

tedd

PS: Active link status simply means what the link "looks like" upon
activation. Some people like to see a momentary visual conformation
when they click something. I don't think it's important for
disability issues, but all people are the same. I'm sure there is
some form of conformation of an action for you as well.
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