Why are hyperlinks blue? | The Mozilla Blog
Key Takeaways
- The color blue for hyperlinks is a deeply ingrained cultural convention in web design.
- The early browser Mosaic, released in January 1993, is credited with popularizing blue hyperlinks.
- Early interface innovations like underlining links and hover states appeared in Windows 1.0 (1985).
- Pre-color systems like Project Xanadu used visual lines and cyan for links.
- Tim Berners-Lee's first browser, WorldWideWeb (1987), used black and white with underlines.
The piece delves into the seemingly arbitrary but deeply ingrained convention of blue hyperlinks, a standard the author, a UX designer, had always followed without questioning its origin. The cultural significance of the color blue for links is highlighted by the disruption caused when Google briefly changed them to black in 2016. The investigation traces the history of links, noting that pre-color systems like Project Xanadu used visual lines and cyan links. While Windows 1.0 in 1985 introduced dark blue in layouts and the crucial underline for links, the first browser credited with blue hyperlinks was Mosaic, released on January 23, 1993. The author continues to explore the evolution through early systems like Tim Berners-Lee's WorldWideWeb (WWW) browser from 1987, which used black and white with underlines, narrowing the timeframe for the blue standard's adoption.
