Add underlines to links in comments, issues, discussions

[aardrian]

Currently a link within a paragraph of text for an issue, comment, discussion, etc. relies on only a change in color to convey it is a link. This makes it difficult for some users to visually identify links without being forced to interact with them.

• In the dark mode version of the site, the text is light gray (rgb(201, 209, 217)) and the link text is blue (rgb(88, 166, 255)). These colors have a contrast ratio of 1.6:1 to one another.
• In the light mode version of the site, the text is dark gray (rgb(36, 41, 47)) and the link text is blue (rgb(9, 105, 218)). These colors have a contrast ratio of 2.8:1 to one another.

These are both below the 3:1 contrast ratio identified in WCAG 2.1 Success Criterion 1.4.1: Use of Color.

As such they either need to have a color change to meet the 3:1 contrast ratio, or some other visual cue. Underlines tend to perform best and are most recognizable (ref: On Link Underlines) compared to other visual cues.

[benjiallen]

@aardrian thanks for this feedback. This is something we continue to work on. I'll create the internal issues and work with our design partners to see what we can do.

[aardrian]

Hey there, have your design partners come up with anything over the last year and three months?

[simevidas]

Wikipedia has an “always underline links” option (under Settings > Appearance). Could GitHub get such an option?

[dipree]

Hi, we have a new accessibility setting that allows you to show underlines for links in text blocks. If you have any feedback, please let us know in this discussion. Thank you.

[yatil]

FINALLY.

[cehfisher]

Hi @aardrian - this issue appears to be resolved per this comment. Could you please confirm and close out this issue? Thank you! (cc @queenofcorgis)