WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Browser zooming sufficient for WCAG 1.4.4 (resize text)

for

From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Jun 29, 2015 8:41AM

> So no, the only thing that matters here is if the developer considered that particular width of the screen, NOT whether they expected a particular size at this particular breakpoint.

When browser zoom is used there will be all sorts of odd widths. Authors cannot create breakpoints for all of these. What the author should do is allow for variance between breakpoints by designing the content to be fluid and not prevent overflow or wrapping. If a responsive site has truncated text when zoomed up to 200% then it would appear to be a WCAG failure to me. I don't buy the argument that the issue happens to other users and therefore isn't an accessibility issue because it doesn't happen to other users.

Jonathan

-- 
Jonathan Avila 
Chief Accessibility Officer
SSB BART Group 
<EMAIL REMOVED>
Phone 703.637.8957  
Follow us: Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | Blog | Newsletter


-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Patrick H. Lauke
Sent: Monday, June 29, 2015 10:31 AM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Browser zooming sufficient for WCAG 1.4.4 (resize text)

On 29/06/2015 15:28, Jonathan Avila wrote:
> Yes, as you zoom in the text size becomes larger and the width gets
> smaller. This can produce problems between breakpoints because the
> author did not intend the larger text size at a given breakpoint.

But you're not just changing the text size alone, you're changing the zoom factor which changes the size of the CSS pixel. When zooming up, you're effectively doing the same as reducing the window width (and then the browser blows up the size of everything to match). So no, the only thing that matters here is if the developer considered that particular width of the screen, NOT whether they expected a particular size at this particular breakpoint.

P
--
Patrick H. Lauke

www.splintered.co.uk | https://github.com/patrickhlauke http://flickr.com/photos/redux/ | http://redux.deviantart.com
twitter: @patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke