In the early days of the web, we all knew how to find links on a page - blue text with an underline was a link. You could argue, as some human factors experts did, that this was a poor choice - blue is not the best color, underlines conflict sometimes with filenames_using_underscores and so on. But it was clear.
And for many years now, the vogue has been to make links practically impossible to find. I actually run some sites that I did not design where I basically cannot see the links (I have a minor color impairment, but I've asked others and the links are just very hard to see; impossible with some monitor settings).
Lately, I've seen some sites that make links really obvious. Big thick underlines and changing the background (not the font color) on hover. Wired is one example. I find myself saying "Yes. Thank you!"
It makes me wonder - are we seeing a rollback where for a long time a graphic designer ruled the design with no input from a usability expert or UX/UI designer to where people are calling "Enough!" on non-functional design?
Making Links usable again
