Alertbox - Usability
In this Alertbox article, Doctor Nielson talks about design guidelines for visualizing links. In order to maximize the likeliness of a link being clicked, web designers should keep the following in mind:
- Links should always be colored and/or underlined so that they are easily noticed by users.
- Underlining is not needed in the case of navigation bars, especially when colored well.
- It is recommended when using red or green for links.
- Avoid underlining any text that is not a link, it’s often confusing to browsers.
- Using different colors for unvisited and visited links.
- It’s preferable, for them to be different variations of the same color; using a vibrant shade for unvisited and a dull shade for visited.
- Avoid putting text in the same color as your links, especially blue, which is the standard color for links.
- on’t use special ‘hover-over’ effects for your links; they take up to much screen space, making it cluttered.
- Use link titles to help users predict where the link will lead.
- An exception is making links become under-lined upon being hovered over.
- Don’t make users so small that web browsers won’t be able to select them or read them, which is especially a problem for seniors.
While reading these guidelines, I came across some that I’ve been violating in my own webpage. Now that I know they’re not good idea, I’ll make an effort to no longer implement them.