Visited Links don't stand out enough + Line Height too short

[#1]

I first posted this in the Photoshop Mac forum, and was directed to repost here. I have 2 serious issues with usability of this forum. I wear glasses, and it is very difficult to find my visited links. 2 reasons:

1. The visited links are nearly the same color as the unvisited links. Difference is too subtle. Whose idea was this?

2. The line height between post titles in the forum display is too short. The lines need a few more pixels between them to be individually readable instead of blending into a mass of text.

These are web design issues. Whoever designed this has young eyes, and doesn't wear glasses. Finding one's place in the links is a giant headache for older eyes. Someone suggested I change my browser prefs or write some custom css to make it the way I want it. I have 2 problems with that:

1. I do web design, and use my browser to preview sites. If I have a custom style sheet enabled, I don't get accurate preview. Then, it becomes a matter of having to remember to switch back & forth every time. That is ridiculous.

2. Even if I could solve it at my end, it wouldn't change the fact that this forum is poorly designed in this respect, and needs to be fixed. I am talking about good layout and typography, for legibility. I shouldn't have to be reminding Adobe of all companies about this subject.

I use Mac OS X 10.5.6, and Safari 3.2.1

[#2]

I first posted this in the Photoshop Mac forum, and was directed to repost here. I have 2 serious issues with usability of this forum. I wear glasses, and it is very difficult to find my visited links. 2 reasons:

1. The visited links are nearly the same color as the unvisited links. Difference is too subtle. Whose idea was this?

2. The line height between post titles in the forum display is too short. The lines need a few more pixels between them to be individually readable instead of blending into a mass of text.

These are web design issues. Whoever designed this has young eyes, and doesn't wear glasses. Finding one's place in the links is a giant headache for older eyes. Someone suggested I change my browser prefs or write some custom css to make it the way I want it. I have 2 problems with that:

1. I do web design, and use my browser to preview sites. If I have a custom style sheet enabled, I don't get accurate preview. Then, it becomes a matter of having to remember to switch back & forth every time. That is ridiculous.

2. Even if I could solve it at my end, it wouldn't change the fact that this forum is poorly designed in this respect, and needs to be fixed. I am talking about good layout and typography, for legibility. I shouldn't have to be reminding Adobe of all companies about this subject.

I use Mac OS X 10.5.6, and Safari 3.2.1

[#3]

Gary,

As it is said here,

http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.3bc13eaf/5?14@@

this would be the right place to suggest improvements: this is the thread that was created as a common catchall list:

http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.3bc157dd/333

Apart from that:

Concerning 1): In the forums unvisited threads, and threads with new posts since the latest visit are shown with a red flag. Is that not clear enough.

Concerning 2): This is a first time ever suggestion. I do not have a problem, but others may, so it is good to have it discussed. A general concern among the natives here is to avoid the immense waste of space and breakup generally seen in forums, but that is not a matter of a few pixels.

I would suggest our repeating ourselves in the thread linked above, unless one of the hosts moves it. In that way the suggestions will live, long after this thread has fallen into the abyss.

[#4]

I'm totally in agreement with the visited links color. Didn't like it when they first changed it, still don't.

I can make out the difference on one of my machines (but it ain't easy). On the other, I really have to struggle to see if I've already clicked it or not.

[#5]

Jacob Bugge,

1. I am talking about posts that I have visited, versus posts I haven't visited. What you said about the red flags has no relevance to my issue. Scanning down the list of posts, the link colors for visited & unvisited are nearly identical, and the lines are too closely spaced. It is next to impossible to find posts I have visited by a quick glance. That means the forum designer is wasting my time. There is this thing called CSS now. You may have heard of it. We don't have to suffer through 1990's web typography any more. Adobe are supposed to be typographic experts, so why do I have to struggle to find my place on the forum?

2. I was directed by Mods to post here, and I am not going to be redirected any more. I am already angry enough that I wasn't even allowed to thank the moderator for his suggestion or include a link to this post, because replies were disabled on my original post. This is it, read it or ignore it, I don't care. As I said before, life is short, so why hire bad web designers?

[#6]

Gary,

Your discussion here is fine, as this is a Forums-specific concern.

Neil

[#7]

Gary,

While I agree that Adobe's choices of unvisited/visited link colors could have been better chosen, you can easily get around this.

In another browser, say, Firefox, you can override Adobe's settings by going to the browser preferences, choose your fonts, font sizes, and any colors you like for unvisited and visited links, plus the background and regular text colors.

This should take care of most of the issues that you mention. In addition, there are red flags at the end of the subject line for topics with unread posts in them. BTW, I do wear reading glasses and haven't found any of this (OK, except maybe for the specific link colors) to be an issue for me.

Now as far as the page layout is concerned, we've been through several attempted changes over the years, and so far, the navigation and layout as you see it has proven most efficient and most wanted by most forum regulars. We can only wait and see what any future redesign might bring.

Neil