A List Apart, size matters: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/sizematters/
An excellent writeup on the matter, among a few others at the site..
Bruce www.bkdesign.ca
Marilyn Langfeld wrote:
I agree with Patrick here. My only concern is with those web designers on IE/WIN, if avoiding px, who make type that will display much too small on other platforms/browsers. And the converse for me, now that I'm redesigning my site using % type ( http://www.langfeldesigns.com/test/index.html ). I've got to make the type a bit small so it doesn't display huge on IE. Not at all an insurmountable problem, but one more thing to learn to do.
Best regards,
Marilyn Langfeld http://www.langfeldesigns.com [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Jan 7, 2005, at 8:13 PM, Patrick H. Lauke wrote:
Rimantas Liubertas wrote:
So we may as well end up spending time and money to implement something what is never used.
How much time and money does it cost to avoid using px (which does cause real world problems in the erroneous implementation of IE/Win, and therefore calls for an interim solution in the spirit of WCAG 1.0 guideline 10) in favour of ems? Sure, if you're not too hot on CSS, making use of the cascade to avoid inheritance issues, or if you're still stuck with "pixel perfect" design, then sure it's a problem...but please let's not blow this out of proportion. Saying that the percentage of users who need it is minimal, and that those users should really change their settings to ensure they can use your site, is not really a valid set of arguments, imho.
What I see as a biggest overestimation is the idea that user _wants_ to control something on your page. No! User wants content of your page.
Which is a bugger if they then can't read it, because the designer decided that he/she prefers an illegible, but cool looking, pixel size.
Or functionality of your application. Or whatever. And d) is very important here: users are much more comfortable with hitting "back" button than in setting font-sizes. So if you committed a sin of infamous font-size-too-small and it is small bellow acceptable level, I'd say there will be one visitor going somewhere else, than one visitor adjusting font-size. But that's an assumption too.
Exactly, it's one assumption against another. Having worked directly with users with various levels of visual impairment, however, I can tell you that those who need font sizing are well aware of how to do it. Yes, they're also aware that there are advanced options that lets them completely ignore a site's chosen font size, but they don't see the need to enable them if the author is considerate enough not to stop them from simply bumping up the text size a notch if needed. And for these users in the know, a quick CTRL+MOUSE WHEEL UP/DOWN is a lot less of a hassle to do on a per-site basis than digging through accessibility options and disabling things for *all* sites (even the ones that show a minimal amount of consideration).
Don't use pixels. Don't yell, if someone uses.
...but gently remind them that there is another way which can eliminate the possibility of problems for certain users with minimal effort.
-- Patrick H. Lauke
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