Note: Please link me if this has been asked, I couldn't find what I was looking for
I just had a conversation with my mate who is an Art Director in regards to a website he designed, when it was developed, absolutely NO link or navigation item on the site shows any sort of state other than the mouse cursor changing to a pointer.
Personally when I come across these sort of websites, I absolutely hate that there is no state. It feels like nothing is happening, like the website doesn't even acknowledge I'm attempting to navigate the website.
When I raised this concern with him he said he didn't care at all. That since launching the website his client had over 1000% increase in sales to the point they had to remove the 'Apply' button to prevent them from being completely overwhelmed by sales. He also said "Seriously? You care about that?!?"
My question is: Is navigation/link hover state important, is it important to the user experience, and should this be something that Web Designer/Developers concern themselves when when splicing a website.
As a side question is Visited state important also?