I was just wondering if you think that these forums might operate smoother with underlined links? A lot of newbies visit the tech support forums here, and they're all used to associating links with underlined words. Many other people do so as well. Do you think that underlining links makes the forums more intuitive because they are more of what everyone is used to?

I posted info about the swith in the Site feedback forum. My question asked to you guys here is much more general. Do you think it's okay for a site to not underline their links, and still have easy to understand navigation?

From my point of view. Yes. The site was fine the way it was, and it was fine the way it was before that and it's now fine the way it is. I think that underlined links would be trivial... I have never been confused because a link wasn't underlined. But then again, I'm not the majority, perhaps you should have a poll?


Anyways, hope that helped (I know that it's pretty much "blah blah blah" but hey)

Slade

Either way was good, but i think you're right about the underlined links.

I like the underlined links.

A lot of newbies really don't realize that links don't have to be underlined, so unless there are underlines they don't know where the links are.

I know this because it took my wife quite a while to learn that one. It didn't matter how many times I told her otherwise she never "saw" any links that weren't underlined.

That's my point exactly. Do you think it's okay to keep it the way it is now, where the links only get underlines when you hover over them? Or must they be underlined all the time. (I'm worried that will make the site very cluttered as opposed to the clean look it now has - or at least I think it has ).

This forum has a rather attractive layout. Permanently underlined links 'disfigure' it!

There's only so much you can do to help, I'm afraid:

Put the mouse pointer on the differently coloured text
Wait to see if it turns into a little pointy finger
Click on it to go somewhere!

That's basic web surfing technique, and if someone is not up to clicking on web page links to go somewhere, then perhaps they're going to be a bit too difficult to assist in any case.

Sorry to sound blunt about that, but there has to be a cut-off point somewhere. No assistance site can be everything to everyone, surely. To me, this is sorta sounding like preparing an English class for grade 3 kiddies, and deciding that the lesson plan needs to accomodate the possibility that some of the kiddies mightn't have learned the alphabet yet!

Using the mouse and mouse pointer is one of the most basic, fundamental techniques of using a PC. If people haven't learnt it yet, then how the heck did they get here?

Hehe! I see your point. It's staying as is for now.

Believe it or not Catweazle there are people out there who really don't understand the mouse pointer at all, they use it in a very limited manner and they do not deviate from it. Don't get me wrong, I don't really believe that the links on this site really need to be changed, after all there is a certain point where you must surrender the handholding for beauty when you talk about design. The links do stand out on the site without the underlining so I doubt there would be all that many people who would have a significant problem, and perhaps Catweazle is correct about us not being able to assist those few anyways.