For my thesis I am required to follow the APA citation and reference style. I personally quite like having colored citations (typically blue; some journals do this) because they allow the reader to identify citations more easily and highlight the fact that they are linked to the reference list (clickable).
To give an example:
Is this against APA rules? I have not been able to find any information on this online at all. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
The APA style manual applies most directly to journal submissions. When adopting APA style for use with a thesis, you need to modify APA style in many different ways. For example, you would typically put tables and figures where they occur in text. You might also use 1.5 spacing, a different heading structure, table of contents and so on. The use of hyperlinks and their formatting is merely another one of these decisions.
As @StrongBad notes, you should think about the medium of presentation. If it is electronic, then links that have a subtle formatting may be useful. If it is likely to be printed, then you may want to avoid formatting of links.
I think this is answered in the APA style blog
In short, since there's no rule governing the use of hyperlinks, take your audience and delivery method into account when deciding whether URLs should become active hyperlinks in your paper.
The blog deals with the traditional underlined blue text used by MS Word for hyperlinks. It suggests the formatting can be distracting, especially when printed on a black and white printer, and therefore advises against using formatted hyperlinks for documents that will be printed. The blog, however, does not rule out the possibility of formatted hyperlinks in documents to be printed and seems to endorse formatted hyperlinks for documents that will be read electronically.
