Comparison of standard link color visibility between young adults and elderly adults

The rapid dissemination of the World Wide Web raises the issue of the Web accessibility, and one of the important things is the combination of a foreground color and a background color. In our previous study, the visibility of web-safe colors on the white background was examined, and the blue used for unvisited standard link color was found high visibility in wide range of ages. Since the usage of the blue and an underline are recommended as a link, in this study, we examined high-visibility background colors to the unvisited standard link color, i.e. blue. One hundred and twenty three background colors to the blue were examined using pair comparison method, and the relationship between the visibility and the color difference was discussed on the uniform color space, CIELAB (L*a*b* color space). As the result, effective background colors to the standard link color were determined on the CIE LAB, that is, L* larger than 68, a* smaller than 50, and b* larger than -50 provided high visibility in wide range of ages.