Flight Rising Discussion

Overall I think it works in most places and is a plus for accessibility. It's especially nice for linked prose in the middle of paragraphs. However, it does ruin the places where I've put a link in the format

Link Description: http://actual.link

because the bolded description was meant to be the focus, but now the link is bolded so the emphasis is sort of lost.

A few points.

> At the default font weight, the default hyperlink color does not pass WCAG contrast guidelines.

The correct solution to this according to web design ethics would be to change your default link colour to pass WCAG contrast guidelines. Forcing bold onto links goes against web design ethics, and how the world agrees they are to be implemented and understood. This is why links, by default, are not universally bolded.

This is not just a matter of aesthetics; bolding text causes a decline in accessibility and readability for just as many people as it helps, it forces unwanted web design challenges such as making the size of the link text's font larger which promotes a lack of uniformity, and can be especially difficult for some people to read. Making words fatter can decrease visual contrast between the crisp lines of text and the background. Then again underlining or italicising text can cause a similar issue for dyslexics.

Just the sheer size increase that a number of bolded words across a page does to tablet and phone readability can cause a notable decline in the page's usability, ability to access links and menus, forcing text outside table and column bounds, etc.

I could completely nullify this "feature" by coding bolded text across my entire page, and the links would be just as invisible as they were before.

Removing our ability to colour-code link text would not be preferred and would cause a huge aesthetic outcry and ruin a lot of artistic pages, but it may be a more ethical solution than the current one.

Whatever you choose to do, please don't make only hovered text bolder or changed in size or moving the text in any way, as text changing size on a hover causes formatting issues, resolution and RAM issues in the device, and especially causes issues for the user in selecting the text with a pointer when a size change causes the entire block of text to move.

It would be great to offer potential solutions in a poll to gauge interest, even if the final decision is up to the developers -- and for the solution to be toggled off for individuals who don't benefit from the change.

[quote name="Paks" date="2025-05-22 21:39:45" ] A few points. > At the default font weight, the default hyperlink color does not pass WCAG contrast guidelines. The correct solution to this according to web design ethics would be to change your default link colour to pass WCAG contrast guidelines. [/quote] I... thought the same thing. Wouldn't the correct solution here be to just... make the link color a little darker? It would literally be the path of least resistance too. It shouldn't really matter what other users put on their pages -- they can make it unreadable if they want. Their pages are not actually part of the game, and no one needs to actually read their posts, bios, etc. The most important thing is that the actual features on the website are clear and readable.

it doesn't bug me as much as I would have expected, but yeah I can definitely see how it might mess up some people's code, so I agree that it would be good to eventually see it have a toggle!

Changing the default URL color would have just been so much more logical? I don't get why they went with this. It looks awful, it decreases customisation on a site that revolves around customisation, and it just makes the hyperlinked text difficult to read and inaccessible for an entirely different sect of people now (I myself have a very difficult time reading bold text). I really don't understand how they thought this was easier or made more sense than a color change, I'm not a web designer but it really doesn't seem like it should be this overcomplicated to me, and I'm pretty sure almost any other website in existence would have just changed the default color for hyperlinks and been done with it.

[quote name="Amei" date="2025-05-22 22:09:05" ] [quote name="Paks" date="2025-05-22 21:39:45" ] A few points. > At the default font weight, the default hyperlink color does not pass WCAG contrast guidelines. The correct solution to this according to web design ethics would be to change your default link colour to pass WCAG contrast guidelines. [/quote] I... thought the same thing. Wouldn't the correct solution here be to just... make the link color a little darker? It would literally be the path of least resistance too. It shouldn't really matter what other users put on their pages -- they can make it unreadable if they want. Their pages are not actually part of the game, and no one needs to actually read their posts, bios, etc. The most important thing is that the actual features on the website are clear and readable. [/quote] This too! Or even another color that goes well with FR's colors that still goes with the guidelines. Links on almost all other websites are not bolded but still pass mainly because of the color, not whether or not it's bolded.

Thank you for working to meet WCAG standards! It is very refreshing to see.

darn i actually liked the bold, it helped my tiny squirrel brain process that it was a link at all