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Re: SITE ACCESSIBILITY

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From: Alastair Campbell
Date: Nov 4, 2013 2:55PM

Jared Smith wrote:

> I don't think 630px is an unreasonable width at which to present
> scrollbars. Is it? Our previous site design did so at around 750
> pixels, so I don't believe that's the complaint.
>

It is a great looking site, and from that specific point of view, I would
have thought a good improvement as well?

When going responsive though, I would argue for a slightly narrower
minimum-width. It is not black-and-white, but my assumptions are:

- A need to increase size of text by 200%, and for RWD that means zoom.
- Working to a minimum (desktop) resolution of 1024px. Last time I went to
an RNIB training centre there were quite a few 21" screens set at 1024, and
I don't think things have changed that much in practice?

So when you're on a 1024px screen and zoom in 200%, you have an effective
width of 512px. I would suggest that is a useful minimum when considering
desktop usage.

If you are going responsive to improve mobile use (i.e. with a meta
viewport set to device-width), then you would probably allow for 320px as a
minimum with. That isn't something webaim.org is trying to do, but does
help to explain why most RWD sites respond well to zoom.

I currently have my new blog theme in testing on another tab, I'm also
guilty of not doing a re-design since 2006! I'm starting the CSS from
mobile styles and adding layout for larger sizes. A bit more complex to do,
but I hope it will be worth it.

Kind regards,

-Alastair