TABLE OF CONTENTS The next chapter discusses bloopers in the graphic design and layout of websites how they are presented. Before we get to those, let's examine a specific type of graphic design bloopers: those concerning how links are presented. Links may be the most important aspect of the Web: They are the primary form of navigation. They are what makes it a web.
If links are the primary form of navigation on the Web, shouldn't link-presentation bloopers be considered a special type of navigation blooper? Yes. But didn't we just say link-presentation bloopers are a type of graphic design blooper? Yes, we did. There is no contradiction. Link-presentation bloopers are simultaneously graphic design bloopers and navigation bloopers. That is why link-presentation bloopers warrant their own chapter.
Because links are the primary means of navigating on the Web, Web users should be able to tell what is a link and what is not. This is based on a more general design principle: Users of interactive systems should be able to tell at a glance what can be manipulated and what cannot.
Here, I discuss links that because of poor presentation mislead people into believing they are not links. The next blooper covers non-links that because of poor presentation mislead people into believing they are links.
All Web users and designers know the convention for displaying textual links: underlined, preferably in blue or a similar color. However, some websites...
