Sorry for the length of this...
1. All government sites are supposed to follow WAI guideline - which
recommend the use of relative font sizes.
2. The aim is to give users the option. Saying that users can change their
screen resolution is throwing the responsibility back onto them - it is our
job to make it as easy as possible for all users to see our content.
3. There are many different users out there with a wide variety of vision
impairments from mildly reduced eyesight to totally blind. Each of these
groups has specific needs and we have to keep them all in mind.
We have done extensive testing with a wide range of these groups. I really
recommend all web designers and developers sit with both blind and near
blind users and watch them use your sites. It changes your perspective on
accessiblity.
One quick example to do with pixels: people with severe eye problems (close
to blind) would probably be using assistive technologies such as Zoom Text-
software based screen enlargers that can increase parts of the screen up to
400-600%. Pixel based fonts become a real issue for these people as there
are often not enough pixels to render a font properly. I sat with a woman
testing one of my sites were a footer was set to 12px and saw that the text
was unreadable for her. Fonts in nearby areas of the page that were
relatively positioned were able to be read easily.
4. Relative font sizing is very easy to manage as long as you understand two
things:
1. The document tree
2. inheritance
Relative font sizes will be inherited by items lower down the tree. EG.
Nested lists set with 80% will inherit and be reduced to 80% x 80% = 64%.
To solve this problem, place your relative font declarations at one level of
the document tree or pay attention to how they can cascade and affect your
content. It is easy to reverse the effect with rules like:
ul ul { font-size: 100%;}
Russ
>
> 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 ???
>
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