Re: Text sizing

Eric Anderson
Thu, 06 Jul 2006 13:22:35 -0000

Sam wrote:
> Setting the css body {font-size: 12px} or {font-size: 12pt} will cause IE
to
> disable the browser''s "View Text Size" control.  I guess
this is why
> percentages are preferred over px/pt in CSS-only solutions.  (Crippling the
> view text-size reduces the accessibility for persons with poor vision, or
> unusual monitor resolutions.).

I''m not sure I understand this rational. It seems like the correct
method for making a font the same size across all browsers is to used a
fixed font size (px or pt). Under these situations IE is not accessible.
This to me seems like a fine situation and no additional user control
should be needed. The fault is in IE not your web page.

If no browser existed that could make the page accessible I could
understand adding a user control (sometimes you have to fill in the gaps
for browsers) but since many browsers exist that can make the page
accessible I don''t see why extra effort should be put forth. Especially
when one of those browsers (Mozilla/Firefox) is free, high quality,
cross-platform and efficient.

By choosing to use IE the user is making a choice to use a
non-accessible browser. That is their fault not the fault of the website.

To me this is like adding an audio recording of all your pages so the
page is accessible to the blind. Most developers do not do this. Most
developers just make text available and rely on the user to have the
proper tool to read the text (screen reader). If you are blind you need
a screen reader (or some equivalent tool). Every website on the planet
should not have to provide an audio recording.

The same goes with fixed fonts. If you have poor vision you need a
browser that will allow you to resize fixed fonts. According to your
tests IE is not the proper browser for that but Firefox will work well
for that. Therefore no user control should be needed.

Just to be clear I''m not trying to be insensitive to the disabled. I
think making accessible websites is very important. I see it as a
collaboration. Web developers develop websites that allow a disabled
person to access their website with preferably free or low-cost tools.
But it is not the responsibility of the website developer to ensure that
the site is accessible on every browser on the planet. As long as a
reasonable choice of tools can view the site and the site is standards
compliant I think the developer has done their job. After that it is up
to the disabled user to pick a tool that will work for him/her.

This is all getting a bit off topic but I welcome feedback on this. I''m
not opposed to changing my view but I am just not sure we should be
spending hours developing user controls (which also need to be
accessible) instead of requiring the user to work with us and install a
free, high quality, cross-platform tool that will do the job even better.

Eric