thats a good one... It makes sense what you are saying, to me anyway. -----Original Message----- From: Miles Tillinger [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, 10 December 2003 1:42 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [WSG] Re: px em pt ???
I definitely agree that relative sized fonts provide a more accessible design but I wonder about how sight-impaired users themselves use the web and their PC's in general? For instance, my grandfather has coke-bottle-thickness glasses and as such uses a 19" monitor in 800x600 resolution, which seems ridiculous to me with my 20/20 vision. However for him it is perfect and when he reads websites he doesn't have to adjust the font size because it is already fine for him based on the fact that his interface is already configured to be large in all respects. I doubt there would be site-impaired users who use 1280x1024 resolution for Windows and just increase the font-size in their browser. In fact I would guess that they would, like my grandfather, already have their interface appearance tweaked the way thay want and therefore their browser would inherit the same appearance. Just my $0.02... Miles. -----Original Message----- From: Cameron Adams [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2003 1:49 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [WSG] Re: px em pt ??? That article gives the worst advice I've seen. Basically, they're saying that if someone wants to resize the text on your web page, you shouldn't allow them to because it will break your site, making it illegible. If a user wants to resize the text on your site, it is because it is illegible to them in the first place; increasing font size can only improve matters. Better that it breaks your design and they're able to see the content, rather than them not being able to see it at all. By using px units, you lock many users into exactly the font size specified (some browsers can resize px, but not IE). Using a relative unit, such as em or % (I use em), allows users to resize text so they can ACTUALLY SEE IT. If you ask any reasonably usability-oriented designer they will tell you to use relative units (www.stopdesign.com | www.zeldman.com), and to code your web page structure to allow for variable text sizes. Hope this helps (and it didn't seem like I was yelling at you), -- Cameron Adams W: www.themaninblue.com In reply to: (aayyy, my third post today?) I'd like to see what all of yours opinion is on what to use for sizes, I have always been a believer to stick to pixels, because that is the only size that to me sounds as something that is not platform/OS bound. Anyway, I also found the following article to back this up, who wants to break it down? -------------------- Using CSS (cascading style sheets) makes it easy to specify font sizes, but before you set a font size you should be aware that it could change the layout of your site considerably. Different browsers interpret font sizes differently, so a font that appears readable in Microsoft Internet Explorer may be smaller when viewed in Netscape. In addition, font sizes on Windows systems are not always the same as they are on other platforms. Your site may look great to Windows users, but it may be illegible to those using a Mac. There is much controversy in relationship to font-size specifications. Our advice is the same as the majority of long-time designers. When you specify a font size, specify it in pixels (px) not points (pt) or em. Using a pt or em font-size property instead of px allows for your site text to be resized according to the viewer's system settings. If their system is set to view very large text, your web site's layout will become distorted and your web site may be illegible to them. Also, be very careful not to set your font-size pixels too small. Some folks may not be able to read tiny text and adjusting their system text size will have no effect on your site because your font-size is specified as px. There truly is a happy medium in any situation and the font-size (ie. 12px) will vary depending on the font-family (ie. Arial, Times New Roman, etc.) you use. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New Yahoo! Photos - easier uploading and sharing. http://photos.yahoo.com/ ***************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ ***************************************************** ***************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ ***************************************************** ***************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ *****************************************************
