WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: SITE ACCESSIBILITY

for

From: Greg Gamble
Date: Nov 5, 2013 8:48AM

Noob question ... why would a screen reader need a particular screen size?


Greg


-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Lucy Greco
Sent: Monday, November 04, 2013 5:26 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] SITE ACCESSIBILITY

Just as a quick note about the 1024 screen size many older screen reader users were told for a very long time that the screen reader needed that sizing and to never ever go over that sizing. I think only after jfw 11 did freedom stop telling people that. I do still see people being told that and even fs tech support sometimes going in and changing users systems to that as a de falt answer to the text can't read. So the 1024 is
a good guide line for now Lucy


-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Alastair Campbell
Sent: Monday, November 04, 2013 1:56 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] SITE ACCESSIBILITY

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