Let's talk about web design, accessibility and the humble hyperlink.

A web designer shared a link that offers examples and a discussion about accessibility and contrast. It is about the contrast triangle, which involves removing underlines from the links in HTML text. If a design is going to be considered accessible, there is a new, three-sided design constraint called the contrast triangle. The link has examples. The designer wanted to know what others thought about contrast, accessibility, links and other related issues.

One person took a look at the link and replied that removing the underline is not the only thing that a site designer could do in order to increase the accessibility of a link on a website. This person suggested making the text bold, italicizing it or inverting the background. This could be done only for links and for all of the links. Changing the cursor to a hand could be another option, but this commentator did not think it would be a sufficient way to increase accessibility.

Another person responded that adding green to the color is a good way to increase contrast. Someone else seconded this and noted that increasing the saturation of the color could also work for boosting contrast in links. Several people did not think that the contrast algorithm was creating results with enough contrast, and many agreed with them.

In another comment, a person added that color should not be the only attribute that indicates an HTML link. An underline is well-understood as indicating a link. For a person with colorblindness, the underline may be essential. A few people wondered if this discussion was related to new accessibility guidelines, and the original poster responded that they got the information from a government website about usability.

A few other people commented about running examples through a colorblindness simulator. Another person suggested that web designers could use a combination of color and underlining in order to appease more people. A person shared an example of Google's underlining and contrast in order to demonstrate that even well-seasoned design firms can get these things wrong some of the time, and there is always room for improvement. For more information click here https://contrast-triangle.com/?textColor=hsl(0,%200%25,%200%25)&linkColor=rgba(0,%200,%20255,%201)&bgColor=%23ffffff.