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ACM SIGCHI WWW Human Factors (Open Discussion)

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"ACM SIGCHI WWW Human Factors (Open Discussion)" <[log in to unmask]>
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From:
Challis Hodge <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sun, 7 Nov 1999 21:46:11 -0600
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Challis Hodge <[log in to unmask]>
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>William Pawlak wrote:
>
>Michael Fry wrote:
>
> > On the other hand, I've been unable to find anything redeeming about the
> > link style.
> > ...
> > Indeed, the underline is an affordance, isn't it?
> >
> > What makes site designers think that removing
> > the underline from text links will do anything but confuse their
> > readership?
>
>It looks "cooler and cleaner" according to a designer friend of mine,
>even *after* he admitted it confused the hell out of his parents when
>they were trying to navigate his site.  Sad.
>
>In my opinion, one of the biggest problems with most info system design
>tools, technologies, and languages is that, in the interest of
>flexibiliy, they allow you to manipulate almost every aspect of the
>output, at the risk of allowing - perhaps even promoting - bad
>usability/design.

It is very difficult to label the manipulation of outputs, such as
underlined hypertext links, as "bad
usability/design" when the conventions may well exist in the first place by
default or habit. Sometimes, if it makes sense, we change things. If not we
might still have slavery and no women voting here in the US :-)

-challis

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