At 08:47 AM 6/30/2005, Chris Kennon wrote:
Strike-through styling for visited links, I've heard differing
opinions on this method, but am asking the consensus of the WSG.
a:visited { text-decoration: line-through; }
Chris,
I don't see any ambiguity. Crossing out text indicates that it's deleted,
defunct, demised. The strikethrough makes the text more difficult to read
which is appropriate only if the text isn't really meant to be read any
more. Marking links as visited rarely indicates that one should never
visit them again; in fact often to the contrary they help us remember where
we've found content worth returning to while perusing a site.
I can see that crossing out a hyperlink could work in a situation in which
links are meant to be followed only once, such as in a checklist of ordered
steps in which backing up is discouraged; but then the designer had better
anticipate people wanting to start over which would necessitate a clearing
of cache: a bit extreme and not to my knowledge facilitated by scripting.
If strikethrough were used on a website for links in general, I'd be outa
there in a flash unless the content were so utterly compelling that I was
moved to forgive the designer their naive innocence or obnoxious intent.
Cheers,
Paul
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