WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Font size

for

From: Glenda Watson Hyatt
Date: May 30, 2002 12:27PM

Hi all,

This morning I received this question about font sizing:

"W3C Priority 2 guidelines suggest that all fonts should be sized relatively
to enable scaling. Would you consider allowing some text to scale and others
not to be acceptable? Specifically, if we've used Text navigation links, and
for the sake of controlling space, fixed that size and allowed general body
text to scale relatively?"

My initial response is:

"Individuals use a wide variety of viewing devices, from very large monitors
to tiny screens on handheld devices, and the content should flow into the
appropriate size. This does not happen when absolute position and length
units are used. Users need to be able to change the size of text to
compensate for the resolution or size of their device or because of a visual
impairment."

Is there anything I'm missing here? Personally, I'm not sure why a designer
would pick and choose when to apply this guideline (WCAG 1.0 3.4). Isn't it
best to make all font relative?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Cheers,
Glenda
*********
Glenda Watson Hyatt
Soaring Eagle Communications
"Creating freedom and power through accessible communications"
E Mail: mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Website: http://www.eaglecom.bc.ca
Want to know how to make your website accessible to more people?
Subscribe to our FREE newsletter by emailing
mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED>

*********



----
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or view list archives,
visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/