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Re: underline on links, from the blind's perspective

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From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: May 24, 2012 7:34AM

Most screen readers do have a way to check the characteristics of a word or letter. You can use a screen reader to get feedback that includes the font type, font size, colour, and whether or not the text is underlined, bolded, or italicized.
It is a feature I only use rarely myself--and only if I am wanting to verify the visual appearance of something. Like others have remarked, if it is marked up like a link then the screen reader will state it is a link no matter that it looks like. Even if someone makes it look like a button, the screen reader will still call it a link--which reminds me of the time I spent about 10 minutes trying to register on a site because it instructed me to click the red register button and my screen reader kept telling me that there was no buttons to be found anywhere on the page.

As far as the other comments on this issue... If it is going to work like a link, it is probably easiest for the users if it looks like a link. You might be able to make it look different from the default link appearance, but then you need to ensure that someone is going to look at it and realize that they can interact with it--and not make them have to wave the mouse pointer over the page to figure out which elements they can interact with. If the user has to move the mouse pointer over the element or click on it to know they can interact with it, then you have just increased the likelihood that the user will miss the interaction. So, a link might not always have to look like a link, but it should always be obvious that the user can interact with it. Well, unless your goal is to make the UI tricky to use which I suppose could always be someone's goal.