2009/8/11 Rob Emenecker <list-s...@hairydogdigital.com>: >> Even if points are not precise unit in CSS because of browser >> and OS problems most users can set their DPI in their >> preferences if it is not automatically determined from screen >> size (unless they are running a particularly abhorrent >> browser + OS combination). > > This brings up a very good point that should not be overlooked. While you > can labor over POINTS, PIXELs, etc., and do the same with COLOR. When you do > that you are NOT designing for your users. You are designing for your own > nicely calibrated system. > > Users, except for some professionals (photographers, designers, video > editors, etc.), do not calibrate their systems. They will do loose > adjustments to their monitor. They may also set their system to "large > fonts" (Windows, not sure what the equivalent is on Mac). > > I know this because I've been there. > > Coming from a print and print design background it was perfectly natural to > me to adjust the DPI of my monitor with a ruler held up to the screen so > that when I viewed a document at 100% on screen it measured exactly. I also > did numerous color adjustments using commercial color targets. > > Guess what? > > People told me.... > > "Type is too large" > "Text is too small" > "That color is too red" > "That color is black" (when it was actually dark brown) > > So now I have one monitor that *is* color adjusted with a print and a video > profile, and an uncalibrated monitor that just has minor contrast/brightness > adjustments. I let my OS use default DPI, occassionally switching to the > preset "large fonts" on Windows for testing purposes. >
Since you have calibrated your monitor you can say with confidence that the colour is brown. People with non-calibrated monitors may disagree about the exact colour but if you designed the page with decent contrast they should be able to see the elements clearly on any usable monitor. I have been where a web was designed in pixels to look nice on the designer's screen and on the bosses screen. The fact that a somewhat aged secretary in another department has a smaller screen with the same pixel count (and thus higher DPI) and cannot read anything on the web was, of course, completely irrelevant to the design. What's worse, outside users might often face the same issue. It was a while back when there was no IE7 so 90% people would browse the site with IE6 that refuses to resize pixel based sizes at all. Were it done in points/em/mm/whatever the windows "use large fonts" setting would apply. Some other browsers offer the option to make the text larger but the design breaks then because it is done in pixels and while the text resizes the surrounding elements stay the same. Recently browsers offer an option that works around this poor design. Iinstead of resizing just the text they scale the whole content as bitmap. It still looks ugly, though. Thanks Michal ______________________________________________________________________ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
