> Felix Miata > The assumption you made is because the > default is too big for you and needs to be reduced by 20%, that both: > 1-most others have the same need, and, 2-it is your job to > "fix" it for > them. In spite of the fact that it is standard web design > practice, this > is absurd, and extremely rude.
I believe that part of the problem comes from the fact that, up until a few years ago (and in many quarters, to this day), when the proper use of CSS and web standards made inroads into the commercial world, most large scale web sites almost exclusively styled all their text as font size="2" or lower. This has created a certain "visual baseline", if you will. Now, in sharp contrast, 100% / 1em looks decidedly large, and sticks out quite dramatically against the de-facto "standard" set by years of font size abuse. Couple that with clients out in the real world (beyond our utopian "this is what we should be doing, no matter what") who, when presented with a site that does use 1em as its smallest size, ask you to make it look like the site of all of their competitors, and you get to the core of the argument. Also, compare the default size of 1em in browsers with the default size of all other OS text (on a plain vanilla install of WinXP, for instance, 100% in IE 6 looks about 20% larger than any of the text you find in the Start menu, or even the browser's own menus). So, you can't really say that that's what the user wants, because the default size of text in the browser does not match the size of what they'd normally set system wide... A possible reconciliation could be to provide alternative stylesheets: a very "designed" one that commits the cardinal sin of going below the 1em text size (plus uses image replacement techniques, subtle pastel shades, etc), and a more accessibility minded style (higher contrast, larger 1em text size, etc). Of course, you then end up with having to provide style switching widgets (plus some way for the site to remember a certain user setting...cookies, preferences stored with a username/password, or other), as our wonderful current browsers don't all provide users with a sensible, easy to use way to select (and make permanent) alternative styles. But hey, who needs UAAG http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-USERAGENT/guidelines.html#tech-select-style-sheets when the onus can be completely shifted on the web *content* developers... (sorry for that last rant, but it's something that, in three or for different places, has cropped up far too often for my liking in the last few days) Patrick ________________________________ Patrick H. Lauke Webmaster / University of Salford http://www.salford.ac.uk ****************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help ******************************************************
