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Re: Google removes underlines. What do you think?

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From: Iaffaldano, Michelangelo
Date: Mar 17, 2014 8:07AM

Elizabeth, if you and I are looking at the same version of Google's SERP, it seems that the links in the body of the page are underlined, while the ones that belong in the top and side navigation are not. This is a widely adopted convention. An old Jakob Nielsen column spells it out like so: "There are two main cases in which you can safely eliminate underlines: navigation menus and other lists of links. However, this is true only when the page design clearly indicates the area's function." (http://www.nngroup.com/articles/guidelines-for-visualizing-links/)

I completely agree with you that we should style a link's focus state. In this case, Google's default focus outline is arguably more visible than their subtle hover effects, but no matter.

Michelangelo