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Re: using pixels for text

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From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Oct 9, 2010 11:18AM

Donna Jones wrote:

> what's the latest for using pixels to size text.

It's still "don't". The pixel is still a physical unit, of varying size, and
pixel-sized text that looks OK (to someone) on some screen looks awfully
tiny on another screen, or the same screen with different monitor
resolution. Moreover, it's a size that is _supposed_ to be constant, with
these properties, _not_ affected by normal user choices. That's why it is
bad (in an author stylesheet).

> the only
> downside i can see is that the font size can't be increased using IE

This is one area where IE surprisingly gets things by the spec. If the
author says font-size: 9px, it _means_ 9 pixels. Anyway, the downsize is
important enough (even though the font size _can_ be increased using IE -
but using tools that most users never heard of).

> (but most people would use zoom anyway).

Would they? They wouldn't if they were using an old browser that lacks
zooming, and they wouldn't if they don't know about zooming, as many people
don't. People with serious sight impairment can be expected to have found a
way around pixel sizes (which are common), but what about the billion or two
billion people with _minor_ sight impairment?

On IE, zooming applies to the page as a whole - it's like using a magnifying
glass. And that's why it often more or less breaks the browsing experience,
forcing horizontal scrollbars and other annoyances.

Using pixels to size text is bad, as it always was, but not among the worst
things you can do to reduce accessibility. Users have workarounds, but they
are clumsy and come with drawbacks.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/