Blue hypertext is a perfect design decision: No perceptual disadvantage in reading and successful highlighting of relevant information

TL;DR

This study shows that blue hypertext does not impair reading or perception, and highlighting enhances attention and re-reading, supporting blue hypertext as an effective design choice.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence that blue hypertext has no perceptual disadvantage and increases attention, validating its use in web design.

Findings

No perceptual disadvantage of blue hypertext during reading.

Highlighting increases attention and re-reading of hypertext.

Blue hypertext facilitates easy perception and effective highlighting.

Abstract

Highlighted text in the Internet (i.e. Hypertext) is predominantly blue and underlined. The percept of these hypertext characteristics were heavily questioned by applied research and empirical tests resulted in inconclusive results. The ability to identify blue text in foveal and parafoveal vision was identified as potentially constrained by the low number of foveally centered blue light sensitive retinal cells. The present study investigates if foveal and parafoveal perceptibility of hypertext is reduced during reading. A silent-sentence reading study with simultaneous eye movement recordings and the invisible boundary paradigm, which allows the investigation of foveal and parafoveal perceptibility, separately, was realized. Target words in sentences were presented in either black or blue and either underlined or normal. No effect of color and underlining, but a preview benefit could be detected for first pass reading measures (comparing fixation times after degraded vs. un- degraded parafoveal previews). Fixation time measures that included re-reading (i.e., total viewing times) showed, in addition to a preview effect, a reduced fixation time for not highlighted (black not underlined) in contrast to highlighted target words (either blue or underlined or both). Thus, the present pattern reflects no detectable perceptual disadvantage of hyperlink stimuli but increased attraction of attention resources, after first pass reading, through highlighting. Blue or underlined text allows readers to easily perceive hypertext and at the same time readers re-visited hypertext longer as a consequence of highlighting. On the basis of the present evidence blue hypertext can be safely recommended to web designers for future use.