Comments on: Usability violation: link colors that don’t change when visited

By: bob marvin

bob marvin — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:32:02 +0000

My personal preference is to have the links change color. Also I think that visitors to websites are already conditioned to having the visited links change color.

By: Aku

Aku — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:17:18 +0000

I hate when links change color when they are visited. Especially when the colors are default and the web page is looking like rainbow when I have cliked enough links on it.

By: Your User’s Experience. Who’s Watching?

Your User’s Experience. Who’s Watching? — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 09:41:54 +0000

[...] there are bigger usability violations committed on the web. Picking on Tumblr just happened to be convenient at the time of writing. This [...]

By: Meryl

Meryl — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 12:53:15 +0000

Also please consider dropping gray text — it’s very hard on the eyes when on a light or white background. It’s a bad trend that has to stoppp.

By: Christian Watson

Christian Watson — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 16:09:20 +0000

I would suggest that menu links fit into the ‘command-oriented functionality’ category. They are likely to be used many times and so there is no value in making them change color.

In addition due to the fact that navigation bars usually have a colored background, there is no obvious default color for a visited menu link. Therefore, creating one that fitted in with your own site’s color scheme would not be useful as visitors would not recognize it as a visited link.

By: Jermayn Parker

Jermayn Parker — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 04:59:05 +0000

Agree with you totally.

However what are your views on menu links??
I have seen many that do not use this method for the menu. I personally think they should also change.

By: webtouch.dk » Linkfarver der skifter efter klik

webtouch.dk » Linkfarver der skifter efter klik — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 00:38:49 +0000

[...] justaddwater.dk har Jesper Rønn-Jensen skrevet en blog om linkfarver der bør skifte når brugeren har benyttet [...]

By: Jesper Rønn-Jensen

Jesper Rønn-Jensen — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 13:06:26 +0000

Another example that comes to my mind is Amazon. Amazon uses special querystring on every link, allowing them to find out where users clicked on a page, if there are several links on the page to the same content.

They do it by making every link different, which in turn means that no links are visited before — even though they point to the same content.

I’d like to see Jakob Nielsen make a business case analysis considering the value it gives Amazon to know what links the user clicks.

By: Jesper Rønn-Jensen

Jesper Rønn-Jensen — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 13:02:59 +0000

@Michael,
I have to disagree with you that fewer users than graphical designers know the convention: The designers I’m thinking of are often blinded by things that look good, simple and stunning.

In their opinion, different link colors look messy, cluttered. You imagine a white horse, but what you see is a zebra when random users click randomly around.

That’s the designers i’m talking about: Occupied with other things than actual users would be. “How the site looks” vs. “how do I find X?”

By: Michael Zuschlag

Michael Zuschlag — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 12:55:17 +0000

A fine guideline, and I’ve been meaning to modify my own WordPress CSS to comply. It’s especially important if you have more than one link to the same content. It’s a waste of time and annoying to click on a separate link and get the same content you covered earlier.

However, precisely because relatively few sites currently follow this guideline, it has diminished value. If graphic designers don’t know this convention, then probably fewer users know it. How much good is it then? Then there’s the problem of the departure from standard colors on web sites today. If the user returns next week to a site and sees green and cyan links, which are the visited ones?