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Negative hovers piss me off
You heard. Web links that behave negatively when you hover over them piss me off. I don't know why, and I know it's not a massively significant issue, but it seems like a lot of people (including myself in the past) regularly fail to grasp the point of a hover/focus state. 
What I mean by negative hover behaviour is the lowering of the contrast or visibility of a link when it's hovered over. It's best explained with examples:
- Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.
- Nullam sit amet pede nec tortor tristique tincidunt.
- Aliquam ullamcorper ligula ac urna.
Get it? When you hover over the link, the visibility of it decreases. The first one is actually very common, and probably annoys me the most. I think the hover and focus states of links should be styled with a little more consideration, rather than simply making them look different.
- Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.
- Nullam sit amet pede nec tortor tristique tincidunt.
- Aliquam ullamcorper ligula ac urna.
The above example shows how the same links could be styled a little more intelligently when it comes to the hover state. The contrast and visibility of the links is increased when your mouse moves over it. As a result the link feels like it wants to be clicked a little more, rather than trying to fade into the background as if it's scared of your pointer.
You may think the scope of this moan is small, but it really isn't. It's not just links within blocks of text that are constantly being styled badly, but primary navigation items, main site headers, and even "Download this program" buttons. It's small bits of attention to detail like this that for me, turn a really nice website into a super-fucking-shithot one.
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Comments (6)
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Sam Brown // 06/06/08
Absolutely agree with you 100%. It’s small details like this that make or break sites in my opinion!
Simon Clayson // 06/06/08
This is very true. Try not to get too angry though.
Jon // 06/06/08
It’s true!
(I checked my own site’s before I commented to save any embarassment!)
Greg // 06/06/08
Thanks for your comments chaps, I certainly didn’t expect such a wealth of concurage.
@claypole: I wasn’t massively angry (as in hulk-style), but I thank you for your calming influence.
Cole // 09/06/08
I second that emotion Gregor - especially a links focus which is often overlooked and fucks up things for those using keyboards (like I tend to).
Not a fan of the approach used by Miguel Ripoll on most of his (otherwise excellent) sites - eg. http://www.miguelripoll.com/ - but at least it gives emphasis to the link when hovered (though not when focussed).
One thing about your suggested alternatives - the contrast difference on the third example is really low - perhaps too subtle for us PC users with crappy monitors and even crappier eyesight?
Tim Van Damme // 09/06/08
Ooooooh I hate it when links are underlined, but it disappears when you hover them. Make’s me go “Huh, am I really that stupid, now where did that friggin’
bananalink go?”.@Cole: :focus is often overlooked. It’s a shame.