[Design] red links and color blindness

[Amir E. Aharoni]

Hi,

Disclaimer: Though I worked in an accessibility software company for three
years, I know almost nothing about color blindness, so this question may be
silly.

A participant in a recent workshop for new Wikipedia editors workshop in
Israel complained that he cannot tell red links from blue links because he
is color-blind.

Has this issue ever been noticed or addressed by anybody?

The only related thing I can think of is the option to show links to
nonexistent pages with a question mark, which was disabled on Wikimedia
sites a year or two ago. Is there anything else?

Thanks.

--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · א־מ֮י׹ אֱל֎ישׁ֞ע אַהֲךוֹנ֎י
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
‪“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬
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[Derk-Jan Hartman]

Well, this is difficult to draw many conclusions from when not knowing
exactly what kind of colorblindness, but..
As far as I know, if you really can't tell the difference between
those blues and reds, then you have a rather rare form of
colorblindness of either monochramacy or Dichromacy
http://www.colour-blindness.com/general/prevalence/

However, there is a lot of details there. For instance, were some of
the links visited ? They have a different shade, and that might well
influence their distinguishability. Also with several of these
colorblindness forms it might also be difficult to distinguish blue OR
red links from the black text (in that case he might have interpreted
and communicated his problem incorrectly)

You can try yourself with something like this palette comparator:
http://www.iamcal.com/toys/colors/

In general when you have two colors like these, they should have
differences in contrast, that almost always works even for colorblind
people. Over all, there are limits to what you can do however.
Changing the contrast might be disadvantageous for users with 'full
sight' for instance. You can't 'defensively' code against all types of
disabilities in the world, it would give you a very ugly website.

A few times, I have considered adding an "accessibility" pane or a
link to a special page, that would allow you to set different skins,
font size, underlined links and other readability aspects of the code.
Such a pane could include settings for color filters for the different
types of color blindness that apply to the entire window (much like
your Operating System can have screen filters for this in it's
accessibility pane). I've never had the time to actually build it
though.

DJ



On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 1:55 PM, Amir E. Aharoni

Post by Amir E. Aharoni
Hi,
Disclaimer: Though I worked in an accessibility software company for three
years, I know almost nothing about color blindness, so this question may be
silly.
A participant in a recent workshop for new Wikipedia editors workshop in
Israel complained that he cannot tell red links from blue links because he
is color-blind.
Has this issue ever been noticed or addressed by anybody?
The only related thing I can think of is the option to show links to
nonexistent pages with a question mark, which was disabled on Wikimedia
sites a year or two ago. Is there anything else?
Thanks.
--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · א־מ֮י׹ אֱל֎ישׁ֞ע אַהֲךוֹנ֎י
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
‪“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
Design at lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

[quiddity]

Re: color blindness - To check specific color uses, try these 2 tools
http://colorfilter.wickline.org/
e.g.
http://colorfilter.wickline.org/?a=1;r=;l=9;j=1;u=en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help%3ALink_color;t=n
(and then click the options inside the floating navbox)
http://www.color-blindness.com/coblis-color-blindness-simulator/ (upload an
image, and then simulate it in 8 types of color blindness)

Tangentially, I compiled a link-dump of all the pages that document or
discuss color blindness, at
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Accessibility#Colour-blindness_links_and_notes



Re: an "accessibility pane" - I had a similar thought (and learned about
some larger internet projects such as GPII that seek to explore the same),
and put some notes at
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Requests_for_comment/Redesign_user_preferences#The_Appearance_menu
I'll try to find some spare time to whip together a wireframe, later on if
nobody beats me to it. :)


On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 5:58 AM, Derk-Jan Hartman <

Post by Derk-Jan Hartman
Well, this is difficult to draw many conclusions from when not knowing
exactly what kind of colorblindness, but..
As far as I know, if you really can't tell the difference between
those blues and reds, then you have a rather rare form of
colorblindness of either monochramacy or Dichromacy
http://www.colour-blindness.com/general/prevalence/
However, there is a lot of details there. For instance, were some of
the links visited ? They have a different shade, and that might well
influence their distinguishability. Also with several of these
colorblindness forms it might also be difficult to distinguish blue OR
red links from the black text (in that case he might have interpreted
and communicated his problem incorrectly)
http://www.iamcal.com/toys/colors/
In general when you have two colors like these, they should have
differences in contrast, that almost always works even for colorblind
people. Over all, there are limits to what you can do however.
Changing the contrast might be disadvantageous for users with 'full
sight' for instance. You can't 'defensively' code against all types of
disabilities in the world, it would give you a very ugly website.
A few times, I have considered adding an "accessibility" pane or a
link to a special page, that would allow you to set different skins,
font size, underlined links and other readability aspects of the code.
Such a pane could include settings for color filters for the different
types of color blindness that apply to the entire window (much like
your Operating System can have screen filters for this in it's
accessibility pane). I've never had the time to actually build it
though.
DJ
On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 1:55 PM, Amir E. Aharoni

Post by Amir E. Aharoni
Hi,
Disclaimer: Though I worked in an accessibility software company for

three

Post by Amir E. Aharoni
years, I know almost nothing about color blindness, so this question may

be

Post by Amir E. Aharoni
silly.
A participant in a recent workshop for new Wikipedia editors workshop in
Israel complained that he cannot tell red links from blue links because

he

Post by Amir E. Aharoni
is color-blind.
Has this issue ever been noticed or addressed by anybody?
The only related thing I can think of is the option to show links to
nonexistent pages with a question mark, which was disabled on Wikimedia
sites a year or two ago. Is there anything else?
Thanks.
--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · א־מ֮י׹ אֱל֎ישׁ֞ע אַהֲךוֹנ֎י
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
‪“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
Design at lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
Design at lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

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[Jared Zimmerman]

Another great tool if you are on a Mac is sim daltonism. I have had formal training in accessible web design and I will add that a red/blue color blindness is very very very uncommon. For the mediawiki.ui color palette we specifically chosen colors that are relatively colorblind safe, for common types of colorblindness. 


We could shift the link colors to be identical to the mediawiki.ui colors (still red and blue, just different hues and shades) but the strongest rational would be consistency not accessibility as the pair of colors isn't usually a major issue. 



https://michelf.ca/projects/sim-daltonism/

Post by quiddity
Re: color blindness - To check specific color uses, try these 2 tools
http://colorfilter.wickline.org/
e.g.
http://colorfilter.wickline.org/?a=1;r=;l=9;j=1;u=en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help%3ALink_color;t=n
(and then click the options inside the floating navbox)
http://www.color-blindness.com/coblis-color-blindness-simulator/ (upload an
image, and then simulate it in 8 types of color blindness)
Tangentially, I compiled a link-dump of all the pages that document or
discuss color blindness, at
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Accessibility#Colour-blindness_links_and_notes
Re: an "accessibility pane" - I had a similar thought (and learned about
some larger internet projects such as GPII that seek to explore the same),
and put some notes at
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Requests_for_comment/Redesign_user_preferences#The_Appearance_menu
I'll try to find some spare time to whip together a wireframe, later on if
nobody beats me to it. :)
On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 5:58 AM, Derk-Jan Hartman <

Post by Derk-Jan Hartman
Well, this is difficult to draw many conclusions from when not knowing
exactly what kind of colorblindness, but..
As far as I know, if you really can't tell the difference between
those blues and reds, then you have a rather rare form of
colorblindness of either monochramacy or Dichromacy
http://www.colour-blindness.com/general/prevalence/
However, there is a lot of details there. For instance, were some of
the links visited ? They have a different shade, and that might well
influence their distinguishability. Also with several of these
colorblindness forms it might also be difficult to distinguish blue OR
red links from the black text (in that case he might have interpreted
and communicated his problem incorrectly)
http://www.iamcal.com/toys/colors/
In general when you have two colors like these, they should have
differences in contrast, that almost always works even for colorblind
people. Over all, there are limits to what you can do however.
Changing the contrast might be disadvantageous for users with 'full
sight' for instance. You can't 'defensively' code against all types of
disabilities in the world, it would give you a very ugly website.
A few times, I have considered adding an "accessibility" pane or a
link to a special page, that would allow you to set different skins,
font size, underlined links and other readability aspects of the code.
Such a pane could include settings for color filters for the different
types of color blindness that apply to the entire window (much like
your Operating System can have screen filters for this in it's
accessibility pane). I've never had the time to actually build it
though.
DJ
On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 1:55 PM, Amir E. Aharoni

Post by Amir E. Aharoni
Hi,
Disclaimer: Though I worked in an accessibility software company for

three

Post by Amir E. Aharoni
years, I know almost nothing about color blindness, so this question may

be

Post by Amir E. Aharoni
silly.
A participant in a recent workshop for new Wikipedia editors workshop in
Israel complained that he cannot tell red links from blue links because

he

Post by Amir E. Aharoni
is color-blind.
Has this issue ever been noticed or addressed by anybody?
The only related thing I can think of is the option to show links to
nonexistent pages with a question mark, which was disabled on Wikimedia
sites a year or two ago. Is there anything else?
Thanks.
--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · א־מ֮י׹ אֱל֎ישׁ֞ע אַהֲךוֹנ֎י
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
‪“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
Design at lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
Design at lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

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[quiddity]

I made a Wireframe mockup of an Appearance and Accessibility pane, to go
with the notes, at
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Requests_for_comment/Redesign_user_preferences#The_Appearance_menu
Feedback appreciated!

I've added the color blindness tools, and a whole new section, at
https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Foundation_Design/Typography&diff=1148113&oldid=939795#Text_color
Hope that's acceptable/tweakable.

(Lastly, I'll point out this colorblind option menu out again, as I find it
inspiring: https://imgur.com/a/iBRGY/layout/horizontal#0
I'm wondering if we can do something like that easily with CSS/LESS palette
variables? I've tried to search for existing implementations, but didn't
have any luck.)

-quiddity


On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 2:35 PM, Jared Zimmerman <jzimmerman at wikimedia.org>

Post by Jared Zimmerman
Another great tool if you are on a Mac is sim daltonism. I have had formal
training in accessible web design and I will add that a red/blue color
blindness is very very very uncommon. For the mediawiki.ui color palette we
specifically chosen colors that are relatively colorblind safe, for common
types of colorblindness.
We could shift the link colors to be identical to the mediawiki.ui colors
(still red and blue, just different hues and shades) but the strongest
rational would be consistency not accessibility as the pair of colors
isn't usually a major issue.
https://michelf.ca/projects/sim-daltonism/

Post by quiddity
Re: color blindness - To check specific color uses, try these 2 tools
http://colorfilter.wickline.org/
e.g.
http://colorfilter.wickline.org/?a=1;r=;l=9;j=1;u=en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help%3ALink_color;t=n
(and then click the options inside the floating navbox)
http://www.color-blindness.com/coblis-color-blindness-simulator/ (upload
an image, and then simulate it in 8 types of color blindness)
Tangentially, I compiled a link-dump of all the pages that document or
discuss color blindness, at
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Accessibility#Colour-blindness_links_and_notes
Re: an "accessibility pane" - I had a similar thought (and learned about
some larger internet projects such as GPII that seek to explore the same),
and put some notes at
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Requests_for_comment/Redesign_user_preferences#The_Appearance_menu
I'll try to find some spare time to whip together a wireframe, later on
if nobody beats me to it. :)
On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 5:58 AM, Derk-Jan Hartman <

Post by Derk-Jan Hartman
Well, this is difficult to draw many conclusions from when not knowing
exactly what kind of colorblindness, but..
As far as I know, if you really can't tell the difference between
those blues and reds, then you have a rather rare form of
colorblindness of either monochramacy or Dichromacy
http://www.colour-blindness.com/general/prevalence/
However, there is a lot of details there. For instance, were some of
the links visited ? They have a different shade, and that might well
influence their distinguishability. Also with several of these
colorblindness forms it might also be difficult to distinguish blue OR
red links from the black text (in that case he might have interpreted
and communicated his problem incorrectly)
http://www.iamcal.com/toys/colors/
In general when you have two colors like these, they should have
differences in contrast, that almost always works even for colorblind
people. Over all, there are limits to what you can do however.
Changing the contrast might be disadvantageous for users with 'full
sight' for instance. You can't 'defensively' code against all types of
disabilities in the world, it would give you a very ugly website.
A few times, I have considered adding an "accessibility" pane or a
link to a special page, that would allow you to set different skins,
font size, underlined links and other readability aspects of the code.
Such a pane could include settings for color filters for the different
types of color blindness that apply to the entire window (much like
your Operating System can have screen filters for this in it's
accessibility pane). I've never had the time to actually build it
though.
DJ
On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 1:55 PM, Amir E. Aharoni

Post by Amir E. Aharoni
Hi,
Disclaimer: Though I worked in an accessibility software company for

three

Post by Amir E. Aharoni
years, I know almost nothing about color blindness, so this question

may be

Post by Amir E. Aharoni
silly.
A participant in a recent workshop for new Wikipedia editors workshop

in

Post by Amir E. Aharoni
Israel complained that he cannot tell red links from blue links

because he

Post by Amir E. Aharoni
is color-blind.
Has this issue ever been noticed or addressed by anybody?
The only related thing I can think of is the option to show links to
nonexistent pages with a question mark, which was disabled on Wikimedia
sites a year or two ago. Is there anything else?
Thanks.
--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · א־מ֮י׹ אֱל֎ישׁ֞ע אַהֲךוֹנ֎י
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
‪“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
Design at lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
Design at lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

_______________________________________________
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https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

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[Matthew Flaschen]

Post by Amir E. Aharoni
Hi,
Disclaimer: Though I worked in an accessibility software company for
three years, I know almost nothing about color blindness, so this
question may be silly.
A participant in a recent workshop for new Wikipedia editors workshop in
Israel complained that he cannot tell red links from blue links because
he is color-blind.
Has this issue ever been noticed or addressed by anybody?
The only related thing I can think of is the option to show links to
nonexistent pages with a question mark, which was disabled on Wikimedia
sites a year or two ago. Is there anything else?

Besides the hypothetical ideas mentioned, there is the option to add
user CSS.

Although not truly user friendly, this is a little easier than it used
to be (you can now make personal customizations without copying them to
every WMF site). As long as you have a global account (many users do,
including most new ones), you just have to go to:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyPage/global.css

You can then add arbitrary CSS rules, e.g.:

/* Red links */
a.new {
color: pink;
}

which will apply on all WMF sites (it is still possible to add rules
that only apply on one site at Special:MyPage/common.css (all skins) or
Special:MyPage/vector.css (Vector)).

Matt Flaschen

[George Barnick]

I'd suggest that something be added in MediaWiki core's Special:Preferences
for accessibility options. Color blind correction options could be one
thing in there, as well as simple options like larger text, etc just to
name some other accessibility options. It surely wouldn't hurt for that to
be in core.

On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 10:51 PM, Matthew Flaschen <mflaschen at wikimedia.org>

Post by Amir E. Aharoni
Hi,
Disclaimer: Though I worked in an accessibility software company for
three years, I know almost nothing about color blindness, so this
question may be silly.
A participant in a recent workshop for new Wikipedia editors workshop in
Israel complained that he cannot tell red links from blue links because
he is color-blind.
Has this issue ever been noticed or addressed by anybody?
The only related thing I can think of is the option to show links to
nonexistent pages with a question mark, which was disabled on Wikimedia
sites a year or two ago. Is there anything else?

Besides the hypothetical ideas mentioned, there is the option to add user
CSS.
Although not truly user friendly, this is a little easier than it used to
be (you can now make personal customizations without copying them to every
WMF site). As long as you have a global account (many users do, including
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyPage/global.css
/* Red links */
a.new {
color: pink;
}
which will apply on all WMF sites (it is still possible to add rules that
only apply on one site at Special:MyPage/common.css (all skins) or
Special:MyPage/vector.css (Vector)).
Matt Flaschen
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
Design at lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

[Matthew Flaschen]

Post by George Barnick
I'd suggest that something be added in MediaWiki core's
Special:Preferences for accessibility options. Color blind correction
options could be one thing in there, as well as simple options like
larger text, etc just to name some other accessibility options. It
surely wouldn't hurt for that to be in core.

Agreed, filed as https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70879 .
If you have further suggestions, please add them there.

Matt Flaschen

[quiddity]

George, that's exactly what I was mentioning earlier. :)
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Requests_for_comment/Redesign_user_preferences#The_Appearance_menu
Feedback welcome!

(Ideally it would Not be in Special:Preferences, but would instead be a
menu that all users, even readers who are not logged-in, can use. Saved in
cookies/localstorage, if the user isn't logged-in.)

I included "Appearance" as well as "Accessibility", partially because they
often overlap, and partially because FLOE and GPII do the same, eg
http://www.floeproject.org/prefsEditors.html (both the top-right
live-example of "Show display preferences", and the video).

HTH.
- quiddity


On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 7:54 PM, George Barnick <georgebarnick at gmail.com>

Post by George Barnick
I'd suggest that something be added in MediaWiki core's
Special:Preferences for accessibility options. Color blind correction
options could be one thing in there, as well as simple options like larger
text, etc just to name some other accessibility options. It surely wouldn't
hurt for that to be in core.
On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 10:51 PM, Matthew Flaschen <

Post by Amir E. Aharoni
Hi,
Disclaimer: Though I worked in an accessibility software company for
three years, I know almost nothing about color blindness, so this
question may be silly.
A participant in a recent workshop for new Wikipedia editors workshop in
Israel complained that he cannot tell red links from blue links because
he is color-blind.
Has this issue ever been noticed or addressed by anybody?
The only related thing I can think of is the option to show links to
nonexistent pages with a question mark, which was disabled on Wikimedia
sites a year or two ago. Is there anything else?

Besides the hypothetical ideas mentioned, there is the option to add user
CSS.
Although not truly user friendly, this is a little easier than it used to
be (you can now make personal customizations without copying them to every
WMF site). As long as you have a global account (many users do, including
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyPage/global.css
/* Red links */
a.new {
color: pink;
}
which will apply on all WMF sites (it is still possible to add rules that
only apply on one site at Special:MyPage/common.css (all skins) or
Special:MyPage/vector.css (Vector)).
Matt Flaschen
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
Design at lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

--
*George Barnick*
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
Design at lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

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[Daniel Friesen]

If possible it would be nice to ask what kind of "color blindness" he has.

Normally color blindness doesn't mean the person cannot see color, but
rather that they cannot see certain ranges of colors (depending on which
type they have).

As far as color contrast goes we already have enough between the two. In
all the normal types of color blindness (protanopia [1% M], deuteranopia
[1% M], and tritanopia [<1% M&F), even when you cannot see red the red
link is still a different colour from the blue link.
The only case where that is not true is full achromatopsia [0.0033%],
where the person cannot see any color at all and in high-lighting
situations (within the range of normal sunlight) cannot see anything.

((i.e: It would be nice to know if he has achromatopsia or if the
problem is not the color contrast itself but a deeper problem with the
use of color))


That being said it might be time to have a discussion about how good
design does not use color alone to convey meaning.
The old preference that replaced redlinks with text followed by a
question mark is questionable and did have good reason to be removed (I
remember something about it existing because the precursor to MediaWiki
and some other wiki engines rendered links that way, but it segmented
the parser cache slowing down wikis like Wikipedia and was non-intuitive
since while you can tell the difference between a link and a nonexistent
page link the only way to get to the nonexistent page is by clicking a
single question mark plus you can't tell how much of the text before the
question mark is part of the link).

However the idea of displaying extra markup beyond the `new` class in
redlinks is a worthy idea. Not as an accessibility preference, but as
something that is always on, as accessibility should not be a default
off preference.
The ideal way to do this would probably be to add an icon to the end of
every redlink (maybe with a "page does not exist" alt text, depending on
what screen reader flow sounds like). If we can't find a good culturally
abstract icon then we could use a circle enclosed question mark and on
mouse over even describe what a redlink is and invite the person to
start the article.

~Daniel Friesen (Dantman, Nadir-Seen-Fire) [http://danielfriesen.name/]

Post by Amir E. Aharoni
Hi,
Disclaimer: Though I worked in an accessibility software company for
three years, I know almost nothing about color blindness, so this
question may be silly.
A participant in a recent workshop for new Wikipedia editors workshop
in Israel complained that he cannot tell red links from blue links
because he is color-blind.
Has this issue ever been noticed or addressed by anybody?
The only related thing I can think of is the option to show links to
nonexistent pages with a question mark, which was disabled on
Wikimedia sites a year or two ago. Is there anything else?
Thanks.

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[max]

accessibility should not be a default off preference.

Couldn't agree more. There's no need to create a user setting when we
could just enable a11y features for everyone. I can't think of examples
where making something accessible for, say people with colour-blindness
would negatively impact other users' experience.

Quick mockup with exclamation mark for reference:
http://codepen.io/awesomephant/full/LJkBm/

Best, max
@awesomephant

[Daniel Friesen]

Post by max

accessibility should not be a default off preference.

Couldn't agree more. There's no need to create a user setting when we
could just enable a11y features for everyone. I can't think of
examples where making something accessible for, say people with
colour-blindness would negatively impact other users' experience.
http://codepen.io/awesomephant/full/LJkBm/
Best, max
@awesomephant

My initial idea was something more like this to start with.
http://codepen.io/dantman/full/avmyw

~Daniel Friesen (Dantman, Nadir-Seen-Fire) [http://danielfriesen.name/]

[Jared Zimmerman]

Max and Daniel, I think that works when there is 1 link per paragraph, but
would be extremely difficult to read in paragraphs with a higher link
density, which is the norm on the site.



*Jared Zimmerman * \\ Director of User Experience \\ Wikimedia Foundation

M [phone] \\ @jaredzimmerman <http://loo.ms/g0>


On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 2:40 AM, Daniel Friesen <daniel at nadir-seen-fire.com>

Post by Daniel Friesen

Post by max

accessibility should not be a default off preference.

Couldn't agree more. There's no need to create a user setting when we
could just enable a11y features for everyone. I can't think of
examples where making something accessible for, say people with
colour-blindness would negatively impact other users' experience.
http://codepen.io/awesomephant/full/LJkBm/
Best, max
@awesomephant

My initial idea was something more like this to start with.
http://codepen.io/dantman/full/avmyw
~Daniel Friesen (Dantman, Nadir-Seen-Fire) [http://danielfriesen.name/]
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[max]

@Jared,
Good point. Updated version with smaller, grey icons:
http://codepen.io/awesomephant/full/LJkBm/

best, max
@awesomephant

[Jared Zimmerman]

Instead of completely new element perhaps we could try something like an
alternate underline style?

examples

http://tympanus.net/Development/CreativeLinkEffects/
http://tympanus.net/Development/InlineAnchorStyles/

something as simple as a dotted or dashed underline for red links, BUT! a
lot of users have link underlining turned off, so this would likely show
only on hover, which is not the end of the world, just something to
consider.



*Jared Zimmerman * \\ Director of User Experience \\ Wikimedia Foundation

Post by max
@Jared,
http://codepen.io/awesomephant/full/LJkBm/
best, max
@awesomephant
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[max]

@jared:

I've got two points.

1. Hover isn't a thing we can rely on. Even desktop computers have touch
screens now.
2.The colour red usually means that something's wrong (in our case: a
page doesn't exist yet), and so does the "!" icon. "Dotted Underline" on
the other hand has no meaning to it, it's super abstract. Users would
have to learn what it means by trial and error.

-best,
max
@awesomephant
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[Ryan Kaldari]

Post by max
I've got two points.
1. Hover isn't a thing we can rely on. Even desktop computers have touch
screens now.

Whether or not underlines are shown all the time or on hover is
configurable via a preference.

2.The colour red usually means that something's wrong (in our case: a page

Post by max
doesn't exist yet), and so does the "!" icon. "Dotted Underline" on the
other hand has no meaning to it, it's super abstract. Users would have to
learn what it means by trial and error.

Adding a ! icon after every redlink would decrease ease of reading for
everyone (including the color-blind). Considering that inability to
distinguish between red and blue is extremely rare in humans (1:33,000), I
think it would make a lot more sense for us to focus efforts on improving
our usability for people with poor eyesight (~50% in the U.S.). For
example, we have countless instances of showing colored text on a
similar-colored background, especially in en.wiki templates. Our perennial
obsession with color-blindness is given undue weight by comparison.

Ryan Kaldari
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[Jared Zimmerman]

exactly. I think that we might be doing too much in the way of a value
judgement. I consider a red ink a todo list, or request, not "something
wrong" I know the opinions vary here but I'd rather us not swing too far
into associating an emotion or value judgment on red links.



*Jared Zimmerman * \\ Director of User Experience \\ Wikimedia Foundation

Post by max
I've got two points.
1. Hover isn't a thing we can rely on. Even desktop computers have touch
screens now.
2.The colour red usually means that something's wrong (in our case: a page
doesn't exist yet), and so does the "!" icon. "Dotted Underline" on the
other hand has no meaning to it, it's super abstract. Users would have to
learn what it means by trial and error.
-best,
max
@awesomephant
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[Matthew Flaschen]

Post by Jared Zimmerman
something as simple as a dotted or dashed underline for red links, BUT!
a lot of users have link underlining turned off,

The default for underlining is off, though I personally have it on.

Matt Flaschen

[Matthew Flaschen]

Post by Jared Zimmerman
Max and Daniel, I think that works when there is 1 link per paragraph,
but would be extremely difficult to read in paragraphs with a higher
link density, which is the norm on the site.

Like Ryan, I'm not yet convinced red links are a problem for many users.
However, it should be noted that high red link density in a paragraph
may be a sign you're mis-linking. Red links themselves are fine, a
couple in a paragraph is probably fine. But e.g. five red links in a
paragraph would probably be unusual.

Matt Flaschen