Ask the Eyetrackers: Underlines vs. No Underlines on Links

Q: I'm a firm believer in the "blue underlined link" on a website that is set up for scannability. I've seen some websites (i.e., Yahoo!) that have gone away from the underline. Have you done any eyetracking research on this subject?

Yvonne

A: We didn't specifically address that in Eyetrack III. However, we did compare eye behavior on two otherwise identical news homepages with underlined link headlines and with link headlines without underlines. (An additional variable was that the underlined headlines were slightly larger.)

What we found was that the underline, in the majority of cases, halted the eye from reading below it to accompanying blurb text. When presented with headlines without underlines, most people went on to read the blurb text.

So, underlines do appear to set up a page for scannability, as you suggest.

What's the impact of a site like Yahoo! eliminating underline links? We think that's a topic worthy of additional eyetracking research.

Of course, an important point to consider in eliminating underlines is: Is the Internet user population ready for this change in convention? Websites from the beginning used underline links, so everyone is used to that. Nowadays, a good many sites have dispensed with underlines. Does that confuse some segment of the user base? Some eyetracking tests on this might shed some light.

Steve Outing, Eyetrack III co-project manager, Poynter senior editor

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