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by mechanical_fish
4276 days ago
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In fact, those links look different because they are semantically distinct, and the underlying logic becomes
clear as you read. The small-caps links are inline references to other sections of the same book; their distinct typesetting distinguishes them from mere text. Because everything in the table of contents is a link to part of the book, these links are not set in small caps or otherwise distinguished — that's a potentially confusing design choice in theory, but I can't complain because it was obvious enough to me from the context that I should try tapping something. The diamonds are outbound links to other sites. Given that this is a coherent book and not a collection of random posts, this distinction is handy: while reading Butterick, I am more likely to click a link to more Butterick than to click an outbound link which will cause me to lose my train of thought. |
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It's totally acceptable, if a bit Knuthian, to expect a reader to learn a few typographic conventions, but they should be well considered. Don't make the reader hover to find which words are part of a given link.
It is probably worth remembering (as this is HN) that design is partly a personal and subjective thing. I am fairly interested in typography but I wouldn't hold my opinions out as the one right way to do things. One thing I have never thought while studying typography is "I wish this author was more pedantic and conventional, I don't know, maybe like a lawyer?".