> I absolutely hate to jump into the topic of font-size issue, because I > think this is > the question of religion, not web standards. > > Which standard exactly prohibits use of px as font-size unit?
On the issue of pixel sizes, the guideline that best describes the pixels issue is Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 Checkpoint 3.4: "3.4 Use relative rather than absolute units in markup language attribute values and style sheet property values. [Priority 2] For example, in CSS, use 'em' or percentage lengths rather than 'pt' or 'cm', which are absolute units. If absolute units are used, validate that the rendered content is usable (refer to the section on validation)." As pointed out, these are guidelines only, and open to interpretation. For example, pixels could be interpreted to be relative units, as explained by Derek Featherstone: http://www.wats.ca/articles/pixelsarerelative/65 The main point that seems to be missing in this discussion is that you could argue that: A. pixels are relative units and therefore acceptable within the WAI guidelines B. browsers should support scaling pixels (and therefore IE is wrong) C. users may not necessarily know about increasing font sizes And many other things... But the bottom line is that these arguments do not help real users who may experience real accessibility issues with a site that is sized using pixels. Accessibility should not be seen as check points, laws, lawsuits or covering your bum. It should be about people and empathy - putting yourself in others shoes. It is also about the real world. A huge percentage of users are on Windows IE and within the disabled community, you could argue this figure is even higher as most accessibility tools seem to be run on that platform. I'd put the question back to the group... Rather than ask "why should I not use pixels, as there is nowhere that forces me not to", why not ask "how can I make my content as accessible to the widest audience possible". If you ask this question, then right now, with the current browser situation, this means that pixels are not desirable as they can possibly (regardless of whether a guideline or not) adversely affect a large number of users. My 2 cents A small aside... I am a little concerned that a private email was posted to the wsg list from the G8 Presidency Team. I hope that approval was requested and given by them to post to a mailing list? Russ ****************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help ******************************************************
