Font size is a hotly debated topic. At one extreme of the font size debate are accessibility purists who believe that web designers and developers should not touch default font size at all [1],[2], and at the other extreme you have the "pixel-perfect" web designers setting absolute pixel sizes on content so that the layout looks exactly how they want it.
So, is there are middle ground between absolute font sizing and no resizing at all? I reckon the answer (and happy to be persuaded otherwise), is relative font sizing. If developers choose, for whatever reason, to change font sizes, they should use relative measurements (em, %) rather than absolute measurements (pt, cm, px): "3.4 Use relative rather than absolute units in markup language attribute values and style sheet property values. For example, in CSS, use 'em' or percentage lengths rather than 'pt' or 'cm', which are absolute units." http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/ The main reason (as mentioned) is Win/IE. If a user tries to increase their browser font size, all relative font sizes would increase, but absolute font sizes would not. One way to reduce the overall font size using relative measurements is: body { font-size: 90%; } Theoretically, this should reduce the users browsers default font sizes slightly while still allowing the user flexibility. It does not matter if the users browser is set to 16px or 36px as the 90% reduction is relative to this figure - 90% x 16px or 90% x 36px. Without trying to complicate this, the reduction is really 81% (90% of the height x 90% of the width = 81% of default size) - more here [3]. However, the actual figure is irrelevant to most developers, as all they are trying to do is to SLIGHTLY visually reduce overall font size. This method leaves most of the control in the hands of the user. It is also important if using this method that standards compliant mode is used, otherwise this rule will be ignored inside table and form elements in some browsers. What do accessibility experts think of this method? Like any developer, they all have their opinion... I ask Roger Hudson, a Sydney based accessibility expert, about this 90% solution and he said: "From an absolutely purists perspective this could be seen as arrogance (taking some degree of control from the user), but as it is only a small reduction in size, it is not a major barrier to most users. When it is done in pixels or reduced dramatically, then it is an issue". He then went on to say "there are far greater accessibility and usability barriers, such as radically changing default link behaviour (especially for cognitive impaired) or using images for text on key navigation items (for vision impaired)". All just personal opinion. Agree? Disagree? Better methods? Russ [1] http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/auth/defaultsize.html [2] http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20020819.html [3] http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/auth/area80.html > these things? What do people prefer to do at the moment? I only ask > because time and again when I go to a page and say "hey, I really like > the text on this page" and then see that it is set using pixels or > points and doesn't change in size when you increase the text size in > IEWin. ***************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help *****************************************************
