At 23:09 (London time), on 3/8/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: >The only reasonable current assumption is that the users' defaults are >exactly as they want and/or need them to be. Assuming otherwise with anything >other than medium, 1em or 100% in body flowing through to main content >unaltered could somehow be any improvement is thus an inexcusably rude >imposition. http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/auth/bigdefaults.html
I fully understand and appreciate the above argument, and the link provided makes a strong and persuasive case. No question about that. However, I always get a nagging doubt whenever this issue is raised. Because whilst the argument for leaving default text sizing at 100% of the browser's default size, and for not making assumptions about the user's settings, is a good one, it does /itself/ make the assumption that the default has been chosen /proactively/ by the user. In other words, the user has looked at text displayed using the default text size and thought "That's just right for me" or "That's not right for me, I'll change it in my browser settings". And I always wonder how many people, particularly the older generation who (without wanting to generalise too much) may not be quite as tech- savvy as their kids, actually have no idea that the default text size can even be adjusted, and possibly look at browser-default text and think "That text looks a bit big and clunking. But I assume that there's nothing I can do about except use the text resizing control in IE." What I'm asking is: Do we /know/ that the majority of people have their default text set according to their requirements, or is it possible that a large number of those people (particularly those people who will most benefit from an accessibly designed site) are simply viewing pages at default size because, to put it bluntly, they don't know that there's any other way? Now, I'm NOT saying that this /is/ the case. I'm really not. But I'd love to know if there is any research data on this subject because, whilst I'm all for using default sizing if it really IS about respecting the viewer's choices, it would be a shame if it turned out that all we were really supporting was a lack of awareness of browser settings and forcing people to look at slightly uglier pages than they might otherwise want or need to. I'm not convinced by my own argument, I'm just throwing the idea out there for discussion, is all. -- Rick Lecoat ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *******************************************************************
