385111 - Default color of visited links should be closer to purple/magenta and not #551A8B

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Theme, defect)

Description

[Gérard Talbot]

Default color of visited links should be easily distinguishible from default color of visited links (current default is blue: #0000EE;) and easily distinguishible from default color of text (current default is black: #000000). 

A very wide majority of webpages use black color on white background (or a strong dark on light color contrast); defaults of other colors should therefore be coherent with such color on background default/frequently used colors.

Personally, I barely can see the difference between normal text (black) and current default color #551A8B of visited links. I have underlining of links turn off.

Insufficient color contrast repercussions means that users can not and will not notice links/webpages they have already+recently visited when scanning a webpage. 

Actual results:
current default color of visited links is #551A8B and is not easily distinguishable from current default color for text (foreground)

Expected results (suggestions):
current default color of visited links should be closer to 
purple<-->magenta continuum (suggestions)
a) purple (#800080)
b) Medium Faded Magenta (#CC33CC)
c) Dark Hard Magenta (#CC00CC)
d) Dark Dull Magenta (#993399) (my preference)
Color names were taken from http://www.visibone.com/colorlab/

Other references:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/About:config_entries#Browser..2A states:

browser.anchor_color default is blue (#0000EE)
browser.display. background_color default is white (#FFFFFF)
browser.display. foreground_color default is black (#000000)
browser.visited_color default is #551A8B

Guidelines for Visualizing Links
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20040510.html

Effective Color Contrast
http://www.lighthouse.org/accessibility/effective-color-contrast/

"Contrast is the perceived difference between two adjacent colors. (...) Contrast is extremely important in Web design."
Wheel of Color: Pump up the Contrast, Robert Hess, MSDN

Comment 1

[Gérard Talbot]

Provided URL is a testcase ... sort of.

Comment 2

[Gérard Talbot]

Image example of colors involved
http://support.mozilla.com/fr/kb/img/wiki_up/fx2-opt_colors.png

Is there really a marked and noticeable difference between text color and visited link color?

Comment 3

[Gérard Talbot]

> Image example of colors involved
> http://support.mozilla.com/fr/kb/img/wiki_up/fx2-opt_colors.png

is now retrievable from

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/gallery/image/1138

-----------

Test-challenge: 
http://www.gtalbot.org/BugzillaSection/Bug385111TestChallengeDefaultColorVisitedLinks.html

Can you easily and quickly spot the word that uses the #551A8B color apart from other words using black (#000000) color?

-----------

If color contrast between visited link and normal text color is small, then people will not easily or quickly discover them: this is, in my opinion, the case with the default Firefox visited link color. Such difficulty will be furthermore important if font size is reduced, small and/or if line-height is less than 1.2.

Actual: 
pref("browser.visited_color", #551A8B);

Recommended/expected:
pref("browser.visited_color", #993399);
or
pref("browser.visited_color", #CC33CC);