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From: Christian Heilmann
Date: Jan 10, 2006 1:00PM

> > Some users don't
> > know how to change the text size in their browser and benefit from a
> > visible control.
>
> They need to learn to use that, too, in order to benefit from it.
> And it may give _less_ functionality than the browser function.
>
> Is it useful to users to make them learn to use _your_ widget, as opposite
> to learning ways that work on the billions of pages on the Web?

I've asked myself this a lot of times and had many an interesting
discussion with clients - especially councils. They love showing their
own resizing widget that proves that they have done something for
accessibility. Painful though if the widget is a really small 10x10
pixel image.

I'd like to see some usability testing with elderly people on those
things. Actually it shouldn't be hard to write one that keeps metrics
of how many people _really_ used them. I guess after substracting the
90% web designers who want to see how it works and if they used the
one at alistapart or an own one you'll get the real number.

--
Chris Heilmann
Blog: http://www.wait-till-i.com
Writing: http://icant.co.uk/
Binaries: http://www.onlinetools.org/