Updated: Comment #77
Problem/Motivation
In Bartik theme links are styled by applying a color, but no other distinguation like underlining, bold, or similar to differentiate the link text from normal text. This makes identifying links in text difficult to impossible for visually challenged users and it is not compliant with WCAG 2.0. On the opposite applying underlining permanently to every link gives the theme a not so simple and clean look as it was intended for Bartik.
Proposed resolution
- Don't disable underlining on links by default (just show them, as does the browser by default)
- Disable links on places where it is obvious (like in menu's, pagers). Clickable headers on teasers are expected to be links as well, it is suggested to not underline those as well.
Remaining tasks
Further review needed of patch in comment #76.
Reference link needed to the other bug issue mentioned in Comment #77
User interface changes
Underlinings in hover and focus states on links which are not obvious links like menu links, tabs, etc.
API changes
None
Related Issues
To be defined
Original report by @BarisW
Currently, Bartik uses
underline: none for its links. For color-blind users, this is unusable. They don't see any difference between links and the content. For lists (tabs, menu's) this is okay, but for inline links in the content, it's not.
Link should always be indicated other than with color alone. This could be done by making it bold or larger, or just by using the default <em>underline</em>.
For more on this, I found a good read: <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Link_style_vote">http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Link_style_vote</a>.
My suggestion would be to keep the links as is (without underline), but add back some links for specific elements that needs it (like links in the node content, or in the metadata. See the patch and screenshots.
Some other elements may be added as well.