Study title

There has been debate about whether blue hyperlinks on the Web cause disruption to reading. A series of eye tracking experiments were conducted to explore if coloured words in black text had any impact on reading behaviour outside and inside a Web environment. Experiment 1 and 2 explored the saliency of coloured words embedded in single sentences and the impact on reading behaviour. In Experiment 3, the effects of coloured words/hyperlinks in passages of text in a Web-like environment was explored. Experiment 1 and 2 showed that multiple coloured words in text had no negative impact on reading behaviour. However, if the sentence featured only a single coloured word, a reduction in skipping rates was observed. This suggests that the visual saliency associated with a single coloured word may signal to the reader that the word is important, whereas this signalling is reduced when multiple words are coloured. In Experiment 3, when reading passages of text containing hyperlinks in a Web environment, participants showed a tendency to re-read sentences that contained hyperlinked, uncommon words compared to hyperlinked, common words. Hyperlinks highlight important information and suggest additional content, which for more difficult concepts, invites rereading of the preceding text.The centrality of the Web for scientific research and economic activity has not been matched by our understanding of its complex relationship with the embedding society. In part this is because of its Protean nature and ubiquity. It exists at a variety of scales, from engineering protocols to websites, small communities to giant e-government and e-commerce systems. It is engineered technology, and a network of overlapping social networks.Hence the Web's study is legitimate from many disciplinary perspectives. To engage with it as a first-order object requires an interdisciplinary overview, grounded by an understanding of its engineering principles, that currently few researchers can achieve....