Terrence Wood wrote on Fri, 19 Nov 2004 00:50:17 +1300: > People get off making this assumption because 10-12pt type is the most > common font size used in the print world,
Web pages aren't printed on fixed size paper. Browser viewports are for all practical purposes infinitely adjustable in size. Not counting those who run their browsers maximized, it's nearly impossible to find two people using the same size viewport in a sample of practical size. Web pages thus need to be able to adapt to pages whose width is unknown, and whose type size is unknown. > and 10-12px on screen is close > approximation of that. Only on old Macs and some X Windows systems is that true. 12px = 12px only at 72 DPI, and very few computers use so low a resolution for the internet any more. The most common default font size on today's internet is 16px, which at the standard today browser DPI of 96 is 12pt. 10pt at 96 DPI is 13.33px. IE6 defaults to 12pt. Gecko defaults to 16px. Windoze users often chose a non-default system font size "large fonts", which keeps the IE6 default at 12pt, but changes its meaning via a switch to 120 DPI that makes it 20px, 25% larger. > 12px type is the preferred size according to > research: > http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/41/onlinetext.htm According to that page, 12pt is the preferred size. > Felix where is proof to back up any of your sweeping generalisations > about users? The page you cited seems sufficient, but http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/auth/wauth2.html has links to more if you need it. -- "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." U.S. Constitution, Amendment 1 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/auth/ ****************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help ******************************************************
