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

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…
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Taxonomy
TopicsColor perception and design
