Is Blue Still The Best Color For Links?

Nov 02

Is Blue Still The Best Color For Links?

I set out to write a post which proves that blue links are not more user friendly than links of other colors. It is a topic all web designers have wrestled with at some point. Many of us, including myself, believe that links of any color can be equally usable as long as they:

Are of contrasting color from the body text;
Are underlined;
Change color when visited;

However, when I began researching this article it became clear that the scientific evidence was against me. Articles, old and new, clearly prove that users find links significantly faster when they are blue, underlined and change purple after being visited.

Each of the articles I read attribute this to a usage pattern. The consistent design of links will program our brains to react consistently. This is absolutely true across all elements of design.

I Still Disagree

I do not dispute any of the research. It is complete and consistent across multiple studies. That being said, I will continue to use my judgement when designing links – blue or not.

The aesthetics of a design play an important role in the experience a user has with a website. I believe a trade-off in color choice is okay in exchange for improved aesthetics. In some special cases, such as headlines on blog posts, I will only show the underline on hover. But, that is always an exception to the rule.

References

Here are a few of the more interesting studies used in my research.

The effect of spatial layout of and link colour in web pages on performance in a visual search task and an interactive search task by Van Schaik and Ling
Against Non-Standard Link Colors by Kristoffer Bohmann
Should hypertext links be blue and purple? by Luc Carton

What Do You Think?

Google, Yahoo, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple all use blue links. Do you think these websites would be less usable if the links were other colors?

About Josh Walsh

Josh Walsh is a Managing Partner at Designing Interactive. He's also an award winning designer, author and speaker on the topics of User Experience Design, User Interface Design and Usability Research. You can follow him on twitter at: @joshwalsh

9 Comments »

Bonnie Domeny

I struggle with this every time I put out my newsletter. To me the standard blue of links does not look good with the blue that I use for header, sidebar, and headlines.

Sometimes I change the color to match and other times I leave the standard blue. There doesn’t seem to be a difference in the number of “clicks” I get out of the newsletter.

November 3, 2009
Matt Becker

Josh, this is a great topic for discussion.

I think the familiarity of blue links plays an important role. But, I think being contextual and consistent is just as important. If your link colors for whatever reason do not stand out against the rest of your content (or your readers may have a hard time deciphering content from links), do them a favor and underline them (title tags would be nice, too) and they should always have those same colors/underlines throughout all of the site.

November 3, 2009
Nate Klaiber

Jonathan and I discussed this on the way into work today. I have read the studies and read Nielsen’s books discussing this topic. They make sense. Nielsen, specifically, has a great deal of data to back up this claim.

I think I have always been on the fence with this one. I understand the value in the blue links, but yet sites I work on always tend to have links that correlate to the color scheme chosen by the designer (sometimes that may even be blue).

I think Matt hits a major point, in that it’s about consistency. Links need to be represented the same across the board, to help establish that mental model with the visitors to the site.

November 3, 2009
Dana Kashubeck

I’ve seen those studies, too, and I was surprised by the results. I agree with you, though. Although I can believe that blue links are immediately recognizable, I seriously doubt that using a different color poses a usability problem. As Matt says, as long as the links stand out from the rest of the content somehow and they change color after being visited, then all is good.

November 3, 2009
Josh Walsh

Matt & Nate – You guys share my position, and my occupation. We’re designers who are paid to make things pretty and usable. We’re also not the average internet user.

I’ve decided that aesthetics trump link color usability for me. But, this would be an interesting study to perform on our own designs.

November 3, 2009
Nate Klaiber

@Josh
I completely understand that, in most cases, we are not our clients’ target market. I would not make a design decision based on my own experience (unless I was designing for myself). This is why this is a good topic to discuss. If it was up to us, it would be a different story given our experience and context.

Sounds like you should do some A/B testing with variants in your links, and then report your findings CrazyEgg will help with a heatmap to visualize the results.

November 3, 2009
Jeremy Walsh

Personally, I don’t think the default link properties are aesthetically pleasing. In most cases, although there could be exceptions, they look uninviting and raw. Although we shouldn’t get too crazy and flashy with links, tying them into the rest of the site always sounds like a good idea to me.

November 3, 2009
Danny

I agree that the standard blue isn’t always the best choice aesthetically, however I think our brains are hardwired to search for the links based on the standard. A stop sign is always red, a turn signal is generally amber, etc.
Everything Josh makes is always eye-catching so I will enjoy it regardless of the link color!

November 5, 2009
Justin

It’s funny how our minds have been programmed by something as simple as the blue hyperlink. I find it funny because it has not been a standard hyperlink colour for many many years now. Most websites do not use the standard colouring but when they do I tend to notice it myself.

November 5, 2009