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In a document which has so many links (e.g. this CV), where the blue is overwhelming the black, and the whole sentences/groups of words are links, not just some words in the middle, should we use a small link icon next to the text instead of embed it? Something like this:
Three regularity results in harmonic analysis
If this method is used, I don't know should we make both text and the icon clickable (not change the color of the text), or just the icon is clickable?
No, because if you do that, then you will have lots of icons on the page and it may cause a detrimental amount of visual clutter on the screen. I seriously don't find any problem with the attached CV. However you can play with readability, try use zebra pattern style (aka swim-lanes) on the table and add space around the content.
Making just the icons clickable will less convenient to use. I would recommend against using the icons, blue underlined text is a clear identification of a hyperlink. Icons will just look unnecessary elements
However, with little CSS or JS coding you can add the link image to see how it looks.
I wouldn't add icons and changing the color of a link to match the normal text is a bad idea as well.
Maybe you could simply add footnotes at the bottom?
Something like this... http://codepen.io/run-time/pen/XJXGgB
