Colour up your visited links

[Top Hat]

Please everyone, colour up your visited links.

It was a top 10 design mistake 10 years ago.

3. Not Changing the Color of Visited Links
A good grasp of past navigation helps you understand your current location, since it's the culmination of your journey. Knowing your past and present locations in turn makes it easier to decide where to go next. Links are a key factor in this navigation process. Users can exclude links that proved fruitless in their earlier visits. Conversely, they might revisit links they found helpful in the past.
Most important, knowing which pages they've already visited frees users from unintentionally revisiting the same pages over and over again.

These benefits only accrue under one important assumption: that users can tell the difference between visited and unvisited links because the site shows them in different colors. When visited links don't change color, users exhibit more navigational disorientation in usability testing and unintentionally revisit the same pages repeatedly.

Source: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9605.html

 

[DuaneJackson]

Personaly it doesn't bother me when this isn't used.

Most sites have a good navigation system/site structure which I think makes this redundant to some degree.

 

[JoyDivision]

I think on sites with lots of links such as ebay its very important, but for the majority of sites I have a good enough short term memory to know what pages I have already clicked on.

Its one of the least important usability issues in my opinion.

 

[creospace]

Trends and styels change, 10 years ago man that's almost Jurasic

Gary

 

[Richard Conyard]

WCAG priority one - do not rely on colour to signify events etc. (can't be bothered to wander and paste the proper term).

 

[creospace]

Actually I wonder what teh future of the web is I mean do you think 'eye candy' elements will burn out and replaced by pure access of information.

Strange to think say 20 years ahead. Maybe worth a separate topic starter.

Gary

 

[sparklyscotty]

for the majority of sites I have a good enough short term memory to know what pages I have already clicked on.

Unfortunately, my short term (and long term) memory is shot. It is so bad that I consider it a handicap and have to carefully take steps to keep track of things, so colour-coding visited links is vital to me.

I also find it useful when I visit a site that I haven't been to in a while and I get that 'where did I find that last time?' feeling.

-Angel-

 

[JoyDivision]

WCAG priority one - do not rely on colour to signify events etc. (can't be bothered to wander and paste the proper term).

Thats not to say you can't use different colours for back links etc. I could make a little gimick like a history page but that will mean using cookies which create problems of their own.

I assume the reason web developers should not rely on colour is becuase some people are colour blind?

sparklyscotty - That is interesting, would you make use of a history page which told you which pages you have already viewed and when?

 

[SillyJokes]

I don't understand your resistance to trying something that doesn't harm your site and is actually very helpful to many people navigating even a small place.

Steve Krug, in Don't Make Me Think compares visiting a website to visiting a superstore. When you go to a super store you can see when you get through the doors of the store how big it is at a glance and you know as you walk through where you have been already. It's subconcious.

But on a website you have absolutely no idea how big the store is from the homepage. Once you start browsing you don't remember where you have been, particularly if the menu titles are ambiguous and can end up on the same pages over and over again, repeatedly making the wrong guess at where you will find what you are looking for.

Having visited links really helps you to explore a big site and it's almost subconcious because it is not intrusive and it can only be helpful.

Yes, this advice is 10 years old but that does not make it any less true today. Humans are still humans and have been for quite a few thousand years and are unlikely to change in the next twenty.

You have to build websites for humans, not some sort of evolving computer reading device that will improve exponentially. We will all appreciate every effort to help us use websites for the forseeable future.

If it good enough for Google, it's go enough for me. Imagine using Google without visited lnks colouring? You'd constantly be going to the wrong website that you dismissed even moments before.

Steve Krug's Website

http://www.sensible.com/

 

[JoyDivision]

If my site only has 6 links then using a different colour for cloicked on links can make the site look messy.

However for somthing like an online shop then different coloured links are a must. Ebay is a classic example.

I only resist is it depending on the exact circumstances.

I will certainly experiment on my business website I am currently developing and see what it looks like.

 

[Top Hat]

Actually I wonder what teh future of the web is I mean do you think 'eye candy' elements will burn out and replaced by pure access of information.

Strange to think say 20 years ahead. Maybe worth a separate topic starter.

Gary

Would be a good topic, you start it

 

[SillyJokes]

If my site only has 6 links then using a different colour for cloicked on links can make the site look messy.

However for somthing like an online shop then different coloured links are a must. Ebay is a classic example.

I only resist is it depending on the exact circumstances.

I will certainly experiment on my business website I am currently developing and see what it looks like.

You are a designer through and through - always more worried about how it looks, not how people will use it.

Even with just 6 links it will be hard for someone new to your site to list off all the places they have been and avoid inadvertantly re-visiting page they have already been to.

 

[Cornish Steve]

You have to build websites for humans, not some sort of evolving computer reading device that will improve exponentially.

A couple of years ago, I worked on a project about advanced degree programs in international business. In the process, I visited over a hundred university websites looking for the same information at each.

I was amazed at the difference in sites. Some were well done and easy to navigate. Others were so convoluted that I almost gave up. Often, I found myself going around in circles, and I would have appreciated colour coding of links to help me.

I'm not an expert on web design, but I agree that some organisations (in this case universities) seem to ignore the human factor when designing a large site. It's rather like directions at airports: The person who puts up the signs should be made to follow them. At these confusing websites, the designer should be asked to track down certain information. They'd soon discover how awful the user interface is.

 

[Jayne]

Hi,

What's wrong with a bit of colour, it looks nice...if they don't like colours when looking at sites, they could turn the colour off of their monitors! Problem solved!

Jayne

 

[JoyDivision]

If my site only has 6 links then using a different colour for cloicked on links can make the site look messy.

However for somthing like an online shop then different coloured links are a must. Ebay is a classic example.

I only resist is it depending on the exact circumstances.

I will certainly experiment on my business website I am currently developing and see what it looks like.

You are a designer through and through - always more worried about how it looks, not how people will use it.

Even with just 6 links it will be hard for someone new to your site to list off all the places they have been and avoid inadvertantly re-visiting page they have already been to.

Actually I intend to do for my clients is usability reports, I studied a module at university about this and I had to design a touch screen system and then get pensioners to try it out.

It was amazing how much the old age pensioners taught me. Its an amazing topic and Jacob Neilsen's articles were used quite a bit during my degree.

I am just stuck in the middle here because I want to design sites with all the eye candy and look great, but I also want to design sites for maximum usability. At the end of the day the last thing a site should do is annoy people and this thread has really got me thinking.

I would never personally trade graphics for usability. A lot of the problems with websites stems from the fact graphics designers started to produce websites when they were not aware of the differences between print and interactive media. That is all changing now though.

Maybe I should use a different colour for visited links as the benefits seem to be out weigh the minor disadvantages.

I am sure you people can tell from my many posts that I am very passionate about usability and accessibility.

My last comment is a bit controversial but if any web developer or designer gets it right first time without any testing and modification they have either failed or lying. There is always minor usability bugs which require a lot of testing to spot. A lot of people will do the modifications sub consciously though.

 

[Cornish Steve]

I am sure you people can tell from my many posts that I am very passionate about usability and accessibility.

Good for you. It's very important, and it's often overlooked.