Kathy Wheeler wrote: > I know the mantra: let the user decide, set font-size to 100% but ... > > Looking at major general news sites, popular public blogging etc > sites, they ALL seem to have fonts set much smaller. This being the > case surely the visually impaired surfer, being otherwise perfectly > normal individuals frequenting popular public news, blogging, social > sites etc, will have already set their font preferences to suit those > sites they frequent. > > Rather than blindly (bad term, I know) accepting the 100% font size, > wouldn't a better approach be to settle on a font-size that doesn't > make a client's site look like a kindergarten reader (compared to > major news sites for eg)
In what browsers on what OSes installed on what particular hardware? You have no control over the hardware a visitor is using to view your site. I could be running a 19" monitor at 640x480 resolution because that's what I need in order to see things. Or I could be like a friend of mine who ran his 17" monitor at 2048x1536 resolution. (I even once ran a 15" monitor at 1600x1200.) > and just make sure it doesn't break under > common techniques used by the visually impaired? That's the important thing, and easiest if you start with the assumption that the visitor already has their preferred font size set. > And what "common techniques" are in use? Firefox has at least 2 > different Zoom options with very different results, then there's > minimum font size ... what are those who alter their browsers > actually using? What should we be checking by? I think that the most likely browser settings you'll encounter in general public use are the browser's stock, default settings. So keep a test system around with your chosen browsers installed with their unchanged installation defaults ... > I would imagine setting a browser minimum font size to bring (say) > cnn.com back to 100% font size equivalent would have no effect on a > site set to 100% font size; very little effect on one set to say 85%; > but running the browser in some zoom mode to get cnn to 100% equiv > would blow our font-size 100% sites out to 150% equiv or similar!! > > Or have I missed something? You're still trying to prescribe the visitor's font sizes. You have no control over it, so why spend any time bothering with it? And who says that CNN or any other particular site is doing it "right"? Way too many sites are designed by Graphic Designers Who Must Look Kewl At Any Cost - and media companies are some of the worst offenders in that area. (An aside: some of the most Absolutely Totally Kewl - and completely unusable - sites I've seen have been the home sites of web design firms ... ) I don't adjust my font sizes so that any particular site's font looks my chosen size. I set my chosen size, and kick the font size up or down if needed by some particular site. I have almost never encountered a web site where I had to kick the font size DOWN. -- David gn...@hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community ______________________________________________________________________ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
