[WEB4LIB] Use of underlining (was "Web design question")

[Erwin Wodarczak]

I'm one of those people who turns off underlining on their browser.  I
find that underlining tends to clutter up a page.  But, to each his/her
own.

An alternative to underlining, especially on light type or if you're
using a non-standard link colour (especially if it's a lighter colour),
is to put all links in bold-face.  See http://www.library.ubc.ca/spcoll/
as an example.

David Seigel (of "Creating Killer Web Sites" fame/infamy) advocated
using red for unvisited links, arguing that it's a "hot" colour, so
attracts attention better than "cool" blue.  I tried setting my browser
that way - I took one look, thought "yuck", and switched my browser
preferences back.

As always, YMMV.

John C Harvey wrote:
> 
> Pam Davies wrote (in reference to Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox):
> 
> > I found it very surprising that although he mentioned the color as a
> > "standard" he didn't mention underlining of text as an even more
> > standard "here is a link" indicator.  Some colour  changes are too
> > subtle to be noticed easily, especially in a "light" type like larger
> > fonts of Arial, making links very tricky to spot.  I have no problem
> > with the choice of colour for links, but I prefer them underlined!
> 
> Hear, hear.
> 
> I would just add that if you're using underlining for links, then you
> shouldn't use it for anything else.
> 
> When I see something underlined, I expect it to be a hyperlink. If I
> haven't had my tea yet, I can spend a couple of minutes clicking on
> simple underlined text, wondering why nothing's happening. 8^>
> 

-- 


Erwin Wodarczak
Records Analyst / Archivist
UBC Library - Special Collections and University Archives
Tel: (604) 822-5877   Fax: (604) 822-9587
E-mail: ewodar at interchange.ubc.ca
WWW: http://www.library.ubc.ca/spcoll/
 
"We do precision guesswork, based on vague assumptions and unreliable
data of dubious accuracy"