WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

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Re: Hyperlinks displaying as blue text only

for

From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Jun 3, 2009 11:45AM

Mark,

I think one of a number of important design concepts to keep in mind is
that it should be obvious to the users exactly which elements on the
page they can interact with. You don't want them to have to drag the
mouse over every element to determine which UI elements they can click.

In most cases, that means using blue underlined links because that is a
definite sign to the users that the item is a link they can click on.
You can choose to do something different, but then you may want to
conduct usability testing to determine if the alternate approach will
work.

(smiles) And please, don't make your links look like buttons. If you
want to do that, just use buttons. It is confusing when screen reader
users are being told to click on the button...and all they find are
links.

Best wishes for your design.

Tim

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Mark
Guisinger
Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 12:23 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Hyperlinks displaying as blue text only


The reason I ask is that the designers of the site that I work on have
followed the blue text and showing the link on mouse over. We are in
the process of doing an accessibility overhaul and we are in the midst
of a huge battle over whether or not to have all the hyperlinks
underlined. I used the WebAIM site as a point of discussion as it is
one we all would be familiar with.

Thanks for your advice in advance,
Mark Guisinger



----- Original Message ----
From: Randi Oomens < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Sent: Wednesday, June 3, 2009 1:16:27 PM
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Hyperlinks displaying as blue text only

I think this is a good question. Probably the asker was curious with
regards to refining their own knowledge?