WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

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Re: Font resizing and change contrast

for

From: Léonie Watson
Date: Mar 28, 2012 4:15AM

I'm not entirely sure there is a right or wrong answer to this one
Barry. It's a question that's been keeping people occupied for a long time
now.

I think a big challenge is that a lot of people don't have the
skills or confidence to make those changes in their browser. The browsers
don't make it easy because the settings are hidden away inside menus a lot
of the time.

People are not always aware that such things can be changed. For
people more used to dealing with print, the concept of changing text or
colour is completely alien. It's a bit like the moving pictures in Harry
Potter, it just shouldn't be possible.

So to some extent this is about usability rather than accessibility.
If you consider people with cognitive disabilities as well, where basic
usability issues for most people are magnified into fairly big obstacles,
the case is probably even stronger.

It makes sense to educate people. Lots of websites put this
information into an accessibility page though. The trouble is that many
people who would benefit, don't consider themselves to be in need of
accessibility. Putting it into a help page is a better approach, but it's
rarely done this way.

For me, the best solution would be for the browsers to make the
settings much more obvious. If that were to happen, I don't think there
would be a need for websites to try and be as obvious about it. In the
meantime, It's probably a good thing that lots of websites are trying to
make sure as many people can make the changes they want. =


L=E9onie =





-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Barry Hill
Sent: 28 March 2012 10:27
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: [WebAIM] Font resizing and change contrast

Hi all

Just joined yesterday, and already have a query for you all.

What is the collective wisdom regarding *Change font size* and *Change
contrast* links on a web page?

My thinking is that they are not needed if the text and contrast are set in
the CSS and can be changed by the browser. Most people who need these
access adjustments will know how to alter it in the browser and, if they
don't, then they will struggle with most of the internet.

Of course, a link to instructions on how to change the browser settings
would be useful.

However, as I am blind, these access settings are superfluous to me, so I
might be coming at this from a rather bias perspective.

Cheers

Barry


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