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Against Non-Standard Link Colors

by Kristoffer Bohmann, September 28, 2000

User tasks are carried out faster and better with sites that use standard link colors as opposed to non-standard.

Non-standard Link Colors Confuse

Pretend for a moment a site with new links colored purple (Warning: Inactive link) and visited links colored blue (Warning: Inactive link). New users would then see a homepage filled up with purple links, while repeat users would see a mix of purple and blue links.

Now, focus on the repeat user who is seeing a screen with 50% visited links. This user has to determine which link is not visited: The purple link or the blue link (Warning: Inactive links)? Most users are likely to say "the blue link" and act accordingly.

See the point? Users get confused if link colors are turned upside down. Result: Users waste their time figuring out where to click, while spending less time reading and interacting with the sites. Even worse: Users may give up finding the content they are looking for. No good for business.

The example is not hypothetical as some sites use red link colors (e.g., Boxman.com). This is truly confusing to any new user. Sites using red links have made a very unfortunate choice as it is very close to the red / purple standard color for visited links.

The problem worsens if the site start coloring visited links (e.g., grey). Imagine how the users screen looks after 10 minutes use; many links will have the visited color (grey) -- so, they'll start believing that they should click the grey links, not the red ones! :-(

Wasted Time

If a large site chooses to use non-standard red links, user task performance time will increase slightly as the user spend extra time figuring out where to click. My estimate is +5 seconds per page view. So, a site with 20.000 daily users who each see six pages easily waste 6 million user hours per year.

You can now calculate the economic costs to the site. The results are scaring.

Repeat Visitors Perform Faster

Standard link colors are helpful to users who frequently return to a site. Users can see where they have been on previous visits and links yet to be visited are clearly visible.

Non-standard link, on the other hand, force users to remember where they clicked from one part of the dialogue to another (which they seldom can). So, users often visit the same pages several times by mistake.

Innovative Use of Link Colors

Effective customization of homepage content is possible without using login and expensive customization technology. For instance, Yahoo Full Coverage use link colors to quickly guide user attention to stories of interest to the individual user.

When a first-time user click on top story A, he is directed to the sub-site for top stories (not the actual story as expected) and needs to click once more to read the actual story.
On the user's next visit, the user sees a purple link to top story B (which he has not read). Most users will interpret the purple link as follows: "You have previously been interested in stories in the technology-category, so you should click." Further, users who don't get the point, are able to use the system without errors.
Homepage links to all other news stories remain blue and can be ignored.

Yahoo Full Coverage: Stories in previously visited categories are purple

Link colors help Yahoo's users see what sub-sites they have been interested in on previous visits. For instance, Yahoo Full Coverage technology section has 33+ sub-sites. Of these, only 10 are presented daily on the homepage. If the user has visited one of the 10 sub-sites on a previous visit, the link is purple. It is likely that this sub-site is of interest to the user.

Note that this technology customize the user experience with less need for editors and information filtering technology. As a side-effect, Yahoo users get rich and relevant background information upon entering sub-sites. So, the extra click is worth it.

Standard Link Colors

Standard link colors are underlined and are colored as follows (Warning: Inactive links):

New link (color: Blue)
Visited link (color: Purple)
Active link (color: Red)

Standard links have two elements that should be present:

Underline. Blue links are not enough. They must also be underlined to inform users to "click here". Otherwise the links may be misunderstood -- users will spend time figuring out where to click.
Blue Color. Most users know that underlined means a link as opposed to blue. However, it takes time to find out and some novice users may never discover where to click. In any case, I see no logical reason to abandon or annoy customers just because they don't know where to click.

Linked pictures provides a special case. They needs to be assisted by a blue link. It is not always obvious to users that a picture is clickable. Only repeat users or expert users care to move the mouse over picture to see if they can click.