What’s clickable?
I don’t think many people would argue that hyperlinks are the most important objects on a web page. Similarly, I don’t think many would argue that one of the first things a person does when scanning a web page is to mentally take note of what’s clickable. It is important to remember, however, that although clicking links has become second nature in an Internet-savvy world, it still takes time to locate them. The point of all of this? If you want your site to be easy to use you need to make it obvious what’s clickable.
The Internet convention, of course, is that if it’s blue and underlined it’s a clickable link. There is a second part of this convention as well, and that’s the visited link color. If the browser notices a link that you’ve already been to it will use the visited link color; by convention it’s purple. If at all possible you should use these conventions.
Yes, it’s easy to change the appearance of these links, and sure the guy in marketing with the wild haircut wants the color to match the logo, but by using a custom link color you are adding an extra half second of hesitation to every user who browses your site. Because your site is one of the 10,000 or so a user might visit in their lifetime, they don’t have the time (no, not even that half second) to learn what a normal link and a visited link look like on your site.
If you don’t use these conventions will people ignore your site? No. By itself does using a different link appearance make my site clunky? Not at all. The thing to remember is that by itself this won’t make an big impact, but it’s one of those little details that when added with other little details can make for a clunky experience.
Posted on: December 9, 2005 – 11:30 am
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