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Riddle: "Detect the visited link".

enter image description here

I know this partially depends on monitor settings and quality, but a better contrast between the colors of ordinary text and visited links would be appreciated.

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  • I didn't realize this was editable. Yes, please do this! I notice this particularly in comments which has even smaller font. – David K Jan 6 '16 at 17:05
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    Shameless self-promotion: this answer of mine contains half a dozen links to experiment with. It's sometimes difficult to see even unvisited links. – Lilienthal♦ Jan 7 '16 at 17:13
  • I suggest [bug] and [design] may also be appropriate tags. – doppelgreener Feb 10 '17 at 17:48
  • I find the visited links very hard to see compared to the regular text color, too. – Monica Cellio Feb 10 '17 at 18:59
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I agree with this. From earlier today:

The only reason I could tell there was a link here was it looked like a question title. I read through the whole thing, then realised it looked kinda like a title of a question I'd read before, and did a double take: "wait, hold on, is that a link?". If it was just regular words I would flat out not have noticed the link at all, even having read through the post.

Or from just now:

Which words here are links? How many links are there in Cypher's post? Where do each of those links begin and end?

(I'd already actually visited a couple of the pages linked to, so I had an issue identifying some of them.)

It should be obvious when there's links. Really obvious.

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    I was just running into this issue and wondering if I should resurrect this post. This is something that is so simple to change and would improve things considerably! – David K Feb 10 '17 at 18:20
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thanks for raising this issue! And sorry it took so long to update. I've updated the site's CSS to account for :visited links to appear visually different from both body text and non-:visited links. It should not resemble something like this:

visited links appear in a fainter blue

Updated based on this comment: enter image description here

Accessibility is always on our mind, so if anyone has trouble seeing or reading a :visited link, please comment here or open a new discussion. Thanks again for reporting this!

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  • Has this in some way influenced the visited links on the start page (not links in text, links in the listing of current questions)? Because these are now at least for me so bright they have way too little contrast to the white background. – skymningen Feb 15 '17 at 15:59
  • @skymningen Yes this was applied to all links. – Ted Goas Feb 15 '17 at 18:37
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    I have a follow-up issue with this. The visited links now have a lighter (brighter) color than the ones not-yet-visited. This is counter to most websites, where the brighter link is not yet visited. After all, this one (still) deserves calling for attention. I suggest reversing the two colors. – user8036 Feb 20 '17 at 13:49
  • @JanDoggen Hmm, I see your point. I've adjusted the design (updated screenshot in the original answer. I made non-:visited links a little darker and more saturated, and made :visited less bright. I realize you suggested swapping the colors, but I didn't want to get too far away from the original design and there's not a lot of leeway between the link's blue and the body text. I tried to address the accessibility concern here without changing the site's existing color scheme too much. – Ted Goas Feb 21 '17 at 22:01

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