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Unrelated to the article content: The styles on this blog overwrite repeated links with the color of the main text (see `.duplicate`). What's the design idea b

by yreg 1y ago

Unrelated to the article content: The styles on this blog overwrite repeated links with the color of the main text (see `.duplicate`). What's the design idea behind this? I doubt it holds, since the links are still there for keyboard users, etc. Either make your hyperlinks visibly distinct (ideally underline them) or remove them.

bronlund 1y ago
If you have already been there, why would you go again?
- yreg 1y ago
  No human visitor opens all of the links from top to the bottom, so the repeat occurrence might very well be unvisited. After all, we have `:visited` for that. But even if you are questioning why anyone would click it -> well why have the link there in the first place then?
rcarmo 1y ago
I did that because people complained that the links were too visible (because the site is actually a Wiki, there are often several copies of the same link throughout the text). Over the past 20 years there have been many schools of thought about it, and the only way I could get people to stop kvetching about it was to have the links become more distinct on paragraph hover but still render them in a distinct color (and oddly enough, the rate of complaints went way down when I shifted to dark red). I have no sane explanation for this other than ascribing it to user-driven UX research over a massive amount of time (when compared to most other websites I know). But (fun fact) the duplicate links inside paragraphs do wonders for RAG chunking and vectorization. :)
- yreg 1y ago
  Ha, did you just update the styles based on my complaints? :) I believe there are multiple reasons why the styles are better now. Even the first-use red links are much more accessible now. And you are now presenting the same content to the users using screen readers or other assistive technologies as for the typical users. By the way, I think your analysis of the Apple situation sounds absolutely spot on.
  - rcarmo 1y ago
    And I did that with just plain HTML, which is madness in today’s web :)

by yreg 1y ago

bronlund 1y ago

If you have already been there, why would you go again?

yreg 1y ago
No human visitor opens all of the links from top to the bottom, so the repeat occurrence might very well be unvisited. After all, we have `:visited` for that. But even if you are questioning why anyone would click it -> well why have the link there in the first place then?

rcarmo 1y ago

I did that because people complained that the links were too visible (because the site is actually a Wiki, there are often several copies of the same link throughout the text). Over the past 20 years there have been many schools of thought about it, and the only way I could get people to stop kvetching about it was to have the links become more distinct on paragraph hover but still render them in a distinct color (and oddly enough, the rate of complaints went way down when I shifted to dark red). I have no sane explanation for this other than ascribing it to user-driven UX research over a massive amount of time (when compared to most other websites I know). But (fun fact) the duplicate links inside paragraphs do wonders for RAG chunking and vectorization. :)

yreg 1y ago
Ha, did you just update the styles based on my complaints? :) I believe there are multiple reasons why the styles are better now. Even the first-use red links are much more accessible now. And you are now presenting the same content to the users using screen readers or other assistive technologies as for the typical users. By the way, I think your analysis of the Apple situation sounds absolutely spot on.
- rcarmo 1y ago
  And I did that with just plain HTML, which is madness in today’s web :)