Unintentional link clicks in table rows

Question

The problem

In a desktop application, our users browse a lot of tables. Some cells contain links. Link texts look the same as other cells', except from when hovering, when they turn blue and underlined.

Here is a table with record rows representing persons. Opening a record shows all details of a person. But I could also choose to instead open the person's company directly from the person list by clicking the link in the company column:

We are combining these three behaviours:

1. Double click anywhere on a row to open the record in a new window.
2. Click anywhere except on a link, to select the row. (the "Maria" row in the image)
3. Click on a link to follow the link. (Clicking on "1 2 3 ..." opens that company). Most columns do not contain links, though.

The problem is that users happen to unintentionally click these links.

The question

How do I modify the link click action so that the unintentional link clicking is avoided, while both keeping the convention of action 1 and 2 above, and keeping the easy access to the link?

What I have tried so far

I thought about minimizing the target area by using a button instead of linking the text, that only shows on hover. But I cannot find a great place to position it at:

I also thought about requiring an extra step, but popping up a menu on clicking a link just feels wrong.

I got more ideas on how to avoid it, but what I really need is a good reasoning which to choose, and why. Preferably as conventional as possible.

Answer 1

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like your links are invisible until the user hovers over them.

If you make the links persistently visible (e.g., as blue text with underline), users will be better able to anticipate the alternative function and click elsewhere in the row to select it. Even better; change the cursor to the hand cursor only on hover of the link.

If you do choose to revert to some smaller hit target for the link, I'm still wary that you're saying "that only shows on hover"—you're effectively creating a secret target that the user could accidentally click on and get the unexpected behaviour of opening the link instead of selecting the row. It would be significantly preferable to have the links remain visible regardless of the position of the mouse.

Answer 2

I would consider introducing a separate control to select rows, such as checkboxes as shown below. This would allow you to include links in the table without accidentally triggering them or having to resort to less intuitive methods like icons or extra steps.

^{download bmml source – Wireframes created with Balsamiq Mockups}