Are we all getting the Iraq Inquiry website blues?
Earlier I had trouble locating a link which I had previously visited on the Iraq Inquiry website. My problem was that the actual link colour on their pages tends to blend in quite well with the black background text. This may make it difficult for some readers to even realise that there is a link there, unless they happen to mouse over it, whereby it becomes noticeable by becoming underlined text.
Just for interest (and the record), here is their current code for links:
Iraq Inquiry website link (colour) XHTML code
#content a {color:#373c8e;}
#content a:link,
#content a:visited {color: #373c8e; text-decoration: none;}
#content a:hover{color:#373c8e; text-decoration:underline;}
Just for comparison here is ours at the Digest:
Iraq Inquiry Digest website link (colour) XHTML code
a{font-family:tahoma,lucida,verdana,sans-serif;font-size:12px;font-weight:normal;color:#69c}
a:link{font:bold;text-decoration:none;color:#47a}
a:visited{text-decoration:none;color:#47a}
a:hover{text-decoration:none;color:#333}
a:active{color:#06C;background:#}
OK. A quick quiz now. Without looking again – how many words did you spot in the first paragraph of this post which have been ‘highlighted’ with the Iraq Inquiry website link colour?
(Give yourself a full ten points if you spotted that they were: link, visited, link colour, blend, black, text, realise, link and text.)
UPDATE 20 November ‘09:
I noticed that this post remained near the top of the Google blog listings for a few days. I don’t know whether this has had anything to do with it, but the Iraq Inquiry website now has its links underlined, making them much more visible.