On 2007/09/06 09:13 (GMT-0400) Timothy Swan apparently typed:
> I'd tend to agree with those that using the browser defaults as the
> base font size would be ideal. Unfortunately we're dealing with years
> of legacy web pages where the vast majority of fonts have been sized
> down already (in my own unscientific study, over 90% of the sites I
> sampled had the base <p> set to give an equivalent of 12-13 pixels.)
I disagree. I think 90% applies to sites that size to any degree below 100%,
with a significant enough portion sizing at 10px and 11px that the 12px-13px
group is significantly less than 90%.
More importantly, because of the dropping average display DPI, 12-13px isn't as
big as it used to be. Do you think making text even smaller than yesteryear is
the right thing for a modern, accessible, usable page to do?
> The side-effect of this is that if you use 100%, the font-size on
> your site will be much larger than on every other site the viewer
> visits.
This is bad why?
Larger, yes. Much larger, debatable.
How do you know those sites aren't getting back button treatment, or unanswered
complaints?
> It's not rocket science to see that if the New York Times (base body
> 84.5%), Google (base body 12px), and Yahoo (base body 84.5%) all use
> smaller base font sizes, using 100% will result in fonts that look
> much larger than "normal."
Maybe to most people, but what about to people who have discovered zoom and
minimum font size? To them, those/most sites will typically have problems with
overlapping or hidden text, along with nearly right or right sized
text in containers constraining them to too narrow line lengths.
> This is not a discussion of philosophy but of practicality. I want my
> visitors to be able to resize the text to fit their needs, but I also
> want my site to adhere to a widely accepted standard, which is *not*
> 16px.
That widely accepted standard is becoming one of broken pages, the result of
zoom and minimum font size. Do you want yours classified among them, or
differentiated among elite?
--
"It yet remains a problem to be solved in human affairs,
whether any free government can be permanent, where the
public worship of God, and the support of religion,
constitute no part of the policy or duty of the state in
any assignable shape."
Chief Justice Joseph Story
Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409
Felix Miata *** http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/
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