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Thread: link underlines and link colors
Number of posts in this thread: 3 (In chronological order)
From: Leo Smith
Date: Wed, May 26 2004 3:36PM
Subject: link underlines and link colors
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Hi Folks,
I am interested to get everybody's perspective on the issue of underlining
links and link colors.
Both W3C and Section 508 require that information is not conveyed solely
using color.
If a Web site has a style that removes the underlining of links in their
unvisited and visited states, would this be a violation of this checkpoint?
Along similar lines of thought, is the very fact that visited link colors
are different from unvisited colors also a violation, since color is the
only cue being used to make that differentiation?
Leo.
From: Chris Heilmann
Date: Wed, May 26 2004 3:57PM
Subject: Re: link underlines and link colors
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leo wrote:
>Hi Folks,
>
>I am interested to get everybody's perspective on the issue of underlining
>links and link colors.
>
>Both W3C and Section 508 require that information is not conveyed solely
>using color.
>
>If a Web site has a style that removes the underlining of links in their
>unvisited and visited states, would this be a violation of this checkpoint?
>
>Along similar lines of thought, is the very fact that visited link colors
>are different from unvisited colors also a violation, since color is the
>only cue being used to make that differentiation?
>
>Leo.
>
>
Well, it is mainly an accessibility and a usability thing. Personally, I
do think a navigation can have non-underlined links and also no visited
link state, if it is obvious that it is the main navigation. Links
inside copy text should have both, underlines and states. Nielsen[1]
published some revised guidelines on links lately, and they more or less
say the same. Joe Clark [2] also rightfully claims that colours for the
different states have to be set, and also explains it in detail in
"Building Accessible Web Sites".
[1] http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20040510.html
[2] http://www.joeclark.org/book/sashay/serialization/Chapter09.html
http://www.joeclark.org/book/sashay/serialization/Chapter08.html
From: Jim Thatcher
Date: Thu, May 27 2004 8:11AM
Subject: Re: link underlines and link colors
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> If a Web site has a style that removes the underlining of links in their
> unvisited and visited states, would this be a violation of this
> checkpoint?
Information about text being a link is available from other sources like the
focus rectangle and the object model. The use of color or underlining is an
additional conveyor of that information. Neither 508 nor WCAG would, in my
opinion, require the underlining.
Jim
Accessibility, What Not to do: http://jimthatcher.com/whatnot.htm.
Web Accessibility Tutorial: http://jimthatcher.com/webcourse1.htm.