Recognizable Links

Visitors expect links to be in their browser's default color & style. If a link is not immediately recognizable as such, it stands a good chance of being ignored.

Therefore, avoid changing the color and style of links. Links that aren't immediately recognizable should only link to optional (or decorative) content.

Making links recognizable is particularly important for images. This is a link; is this ?

The color and style of text links should not be altered. Empirical studies show that a text link which is hard to recognize will not be discovered.

The worst case is when a link is indistinguishable from its surrounding text. This happens when site creators assume browsers underline links, then set link colors to match surrounding text. This is a dangerous practice, because many browsers allow underlining of links to be disabled. When these two circumstances combine, there is no visual indication that text is a link.

There is one exception to this rule: a borderless image which links to another (usually larger) version of the same image is okay if the image is decorative. An example is the little compass icon above, which is links to a map of these patterns. The map is a navigational aid, but the site works just as well without it. For this reason, it doesn't need a border. However, that wouldn't be the case if this were a research paper and a thumbnail image linked to a full-sized chart. In that case, it would be important to make the link explicit, because you care whether visitors find the link's target.

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