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Re: Links in context - or not?

for

From: Moore, Michael
Date: Oct 31, 2008 7:40AM

Karen wrote:


I also teach that they should remain blue with the underline because if
you
try to make them just like the text, they then become invisible to
people
who are not using screen readers. The blue text with the underline isn't
as
distracting as either the long URL's or mousing around a page trying to
see
if there are links on it because the link text looks like the rest of
the
document text.

Mike:

I concur and would like to emphasize that the underlining of links
within blocks of text is very important for colorblind and low vision
users who may not realize that they are links otherwise. Along the same
line of thought, I recommend avoiding the use of underlined text for
emphasis because folks will expect that the underlined text will be a
link.

I believe that the underlining is more important than the color, so if
you have to compromise with the design/marketing people I would give on
color first, as long as the color was noticeably different than the text
color, but insist on at least a dashed underline for links. (Yes, the
dashed line is the default display for acronyms in some browsers, so the
solution is not perfect)