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Thread: Font size question
Number of posts in this thread: 13 (In chronological order)
From: Kathleen Anderson
Date: Tue, Oct 29 2002 8:17AM
Subject: Font size question
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Yesterday I received the following email from a visitor to our site:
"I was on the state comptroller's page and when I went to this particular page: http://www.osc.state.ct.us/finance/whatis.htm I couldn't read the links or the text on the page. Of course I'm aware that I can adjust the size with the options in my browser but the font size was so unusually small. This is unacceptable. Could you please do something to rectify this."
I wrote back and said:
"Thank you for writing to with your concerns about the font size used on the Bond Allocation Database web site. The site was created using a stylesheet for accessibility reasons and uses the 'em' attribute for the font size. The value is set to .95, which is only 5% less than if no font size had been specified at all. The 'em' attribute allows the visitor to increase (or decrease) the text to his or her own comfort level.
Could you please tell me what browser and browser version you are using - perhaps there is an incompatibility issue that we are unaware of."
He wrote this back to me:
"I've got ie5.5 and I tried to adjust the font size but when I did it was too big and the text became too cumbersome. I wouldn't have emailed you unless it was really an issue but it is and when I couldn't resolve it on my own with the font adjustment in ie then I felt it necessary to notify you.
thanks for taking care of this for me."
The way he ended this last email makes it sound to me like he is expecting me to make changes to the site. This site has been up for at least two years, and this is the first time anyone has written to us with this issue. I have viewed the site in IE, Opera and Netscape, and I think it's working OK. I am not sure how to respond. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Is there a change I can make that will make everyone happy, including my boss?
Kathleen Anderson, Webmaster
State of Connecticut, Office of the State Comptroller
55 Elm Street, Hartford, Connecticut 06106
voice: (860) 702-3355 fax: (860) 702-3634
email: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
URL: http://www.osc.state.ct.us/
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From: Timothy J. Luoma
Date: Tue, Oct 29 2002 8:41AM
Subject: Re: Font size question
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On Tue, 29 Oct 2002 08:19:13 -0500, Kathleen Anderson < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:
> "I was on the state comptroller's page and when I went to this particular
> page: http://www.osc.state.ct.us/finance/whatis.htm I couldn't read the
> links or the text on the page. Of course I'm aware that I can adjust the
> size with the options in my browser but the font size was so unusually
> small. This is unacceptable. Could you please do something to rectify
> this."
My guess is that he uses IE with the font size set to 'smaller'
> The way he ended this last email makes it sound to me like he is
> expecting me to make changes to the site. This site has been up for at
> least two years, and this is the first time anyone has written to us with
> this issue. I have viewed the site in IE, Opera and Netscape, and I
> think it's working OK. I am not sure how to respond. Does anyone have
> any thoughts on this? Is there a change I can make that will make
> everyone happy, including my boss?
If I view the site in IE6 with my font set to 'smaller' it is very small,
and 'smallest' is far too small to read.
If you change your font-size : .95em; to
font-size : small; then it will better achieve the effect and not get 'too
small' (I could read it in IE on 'smallest')
ref: http://diveintoaccessibility.org/day_26_using_relative_font_sizes.html
TjL
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Timothy J. Luoma
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From: Joel Ward
Date: Tue, Oct 29 2002 8:41AM
Subject: Re: Font size question
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> The way he ended this last email makes it sound to me like he is expecting
me to make changes to the site. This site has been up for at least two
years, and this is the first time anyone has written to us with this issue.
I have viewed the site in IE, Opera and Netscape, and I think it's working
OK. I am not sure how to respond. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
Is there a change I can make that will make everyone happy, including my
boss?
Did he tell you which font setting he was using in IE? It seems that the
"Smaller" font setting does make the text very small, but at "Medium" it is
just fine (aka "normal"). Also, is he overriding the font face in the
document? Different fonts may be different sizes. There might be something
else going on with his setup too.
Since you are using relative sizes, I'd be hesitant to make any changes to
your site without further testing or feedback. This person is the only one
who has complained, and the complaint seems to be half-baked (no offense,
but he CAN make his fonts bigger but he doesn't LIKE it). I never think it
is a good idea to change a web site after getting only one complaint from
one user, unless you can also see the issue yourself and the problem seems
valid. Since you can't fully understand his "problem," I don't think it's
wise to make any changes yet.
This is not to say that his issue is not valid, but at the outset it does
not seem as earth shattering as he says.
If you really want to do something, I'd test using 1em or just removing the
font size altogether from the stylesheet.
Just my thoughts...
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From: Timothy J. Luoma
Date: Tue, Oct 29 2002 8:48AM
Subject: Re: Font size question
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BTW I put up a changed copy at http://tntluoma.com/temp/soc/ for you to
compare.
TjL
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From: Kathleen Anderson
Date: Tue, Oct 29 2002 9:14AM
Subject: Re: Font size question
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Timothy J. Luoma" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
>
> BTW I put up a changed copy at http://tntluoma.com/temp/soc/ for you to
> compare.
>
> TjL
>
Thank you Timothy and Joel:
I will verify with the OP that he does have his font size set to medium. Timothy - I took at look at the page you put up (thank you for doing that) - to me it looks so small that it might require more visitors than before to increase *their* font size. I will experiment with 1 em and no font size at all while I'm waiting to hear back.
Kathleen
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From: Kathleen Anderson
Date: Tue, Oct 29 2002 10:52AM
Subject: Re: Font size question - resolved
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I wrote:
I am going to do some experimenting with the font size; in the mean time, could you please verify for me that you have your browser text size set to 'medium'?
He wrote:
I've set the font size to medium. Actually, I apologize, I really should have put it on medium. And that page in question reads just fine. Thanks for your help.
And thank you all (webaimers) for *your* help!
Kathleen
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From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Tue, Oct 29 2002 11:08AM
Subject: Re: Font size question - resolved
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Kathleen,
Your stylesheet could be modified to take care of this issue. If you put
the font size to smallest in IE, you will notice that the two lines at the
bottom of the page, are marginally readable. They are larger than the text
in the middle of the page and in the left nav. The difference? The text in
the middle of the page and the nav is in table cells. Your css declaration:
P {font-size: .95em;}
is not doing anything to the text in table cells (you can make the text red
or really really large in the stylesheet to help debug this sort of thing).
You do have the same settings for <td> in the stylesheet, but as far as IE
is concerned, you don't have text in the <td>'s, just <p>'s. If you change
the td style declaration to:
td p {font-size: .95em}
you'll notice a difference. You'll need to take care of this for the <li>
tags as well.
Hope this helps,
AWK
On 10/29/02 12:36 PM, "Kathleen Anderson" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:
> I wrote:
> I am going to do some experimenting with the font size; in the mean time,
> could you please verify for me that you have your browser text size set to
> 'medium'?
>
> He wrote:
> I've set the font size to medium. Actually, I apologize, I really should have
> put it on medium. And that page in question reads just fine. Thanks for your
> help.
>
>
>
> And thank you all (webaimers) for *your* help!
>
> Kathleen
>
>
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> visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/
>
--
Andrew Kirkpatrick
CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media
125 Western Ave.
Boston, MA 02134
E-mail: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Web site: ncam.wgbh.org
617-300-4420 (direct voice/FAX)
617-300-3400 (main NCAM)
617-300-2489 (TTY)
WGBH enriches people's lives through programs and services that educate,
inspire, and entertain, fostering citizenship and culture, the joy of
learning, and the power of diverse perspectives.
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From: Kathleen Anderson
Date: Tue, Oct 29 2002 12:09PM
Subject: Re: Font size question - resolved
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew Kirkpatrick" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
To: < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2002 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: Font size question - resolved
> Kathleen,
If you change the td style declaration to:
>
> td p {font-size: .95em}
>
> you'll notice a difference.
I did and I do - see: http://www.osc.state.ct.us/finance/
You'll need to take care of this for the <li> tags as well.
I did - I tried li p { and it seemed to make the list items larger by just a bit.
>
> Hope this helps,
> AWK
>
It does - and I have one other question - I am not specifying anything for the headers except the font-family, yet the headers don't get larger in IE when I increase the font size. Do you know why that is?
Thank you,
Kathleen
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From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Tue, Oct 29 2002 12:46PM
Subject: Re: Font size question - resolved
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On 10/29/02 1:50 PM, "Kathleen Anderson" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:
> I did - I tried li p { and it seemed to make the list items larger by just a
> bit.
I didn't perceive any difference in size when I tried it. Not sure what is
happening here.
> It does - and I have one other question - I am not specifying anything for the
> headers except the font-family, yet the headers don't get larger in IE when I
> increase the font size. Do you know why that is?
That may be because (warning: speculation) IE offers a lower degree of
change in the font sizing for small headers, like the H5 headers you are
using. I'd recommend using an H1 for the first header (it is the page title
as well) and H2 headers for the rest on this page. Then you will need to
add styles for the headers to the stylesheet - this is what I did for a site
I worked on at http://ncam.wgbh.org/salt/guidelines:
h1 {text-align: left; font-size: 1.5em;}
h2 {text-align: left; font-size: 1.25em;}
h3 {text-align: left; font-size: 1em;}
h4 {text-align: left; font-size: .9em;}
h5 {text-align: left; font-size: .8em;}
AWK
--
Andrew Kirkpatrick
CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media
125 Western Ave.
Boston, MA 02134
E-mail: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Web site: ncam.wgbh.org
617-300-4420 (direct voice/FAX)
617-300-3400 (main NCAM)
617-300-2489 (TTY)
WGBH enriches people's lives through programs and services that educate,
inspire, and entertain, fostering citizenship and culture, the joy of
learning, and the power of diverse perspectives.
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From: Holly Marie
Date: Tue, Oct 29 2002 2:07PM
Subject: Re: Font size question
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From: "Kathleen Anderson"
| Yesterday I received the following email from a visitor to our site:
|
| "I was on the state comptroller's page and when I went to this
particular page: http://www.osc.state.ct.us/finance/whatis.htm I
couldn't read the links or the text on the page. Of course I'm aware
that I can adjust the size with the options in my browser but the font
size was so unusually small. This is unacceptable. Could you please do
something to rectify this."
looks Fine to me.
I even put it in IE5.5 and set it to smaller and it was still
readable[and I am in that getting older range group].
If I put it in smallest it is unreadable.
I view my pages at average settings on all browsers, and test as well as
develop with this in mind.
Often, I do not size fonts or let them default to 1.0em, sometimes I may
give elements a .90 or 90% sizing.
I do not go under those relative percentages and make sure that other
areas that may nest are not compounding a resize smaller. [nested lists,
etc... or size on an element then placed into an area that may resize it
again].
I think this may be a case where the user's font sizes have somehow
changed in his browser options, either by him or herself, or someone
using their computer. My first reply back, may have included
instructions for the user to check their font settings and inform the
user that the sizing or page is set to be viewed against average
settings. [hard to say if the user knows or knew his sizing may be
different than average?]
If the user does know, and does set his sizing smaller, then the user
can reset if they cannot read.
holly
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From: Leo Smith
Date: Tue, Oct 29 2002 2:36PM
Subject: Re: Font size question
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> The site was created using a
> stylesheet for accessibility reasons and uses the 'em' attribute for
> the font size. The value is set to .95, which is only 5% less than if
> no font size had been specified at all. The 'em' attribute allows the
> visitor to increase (or decrease) the text to his or her own comfort
> level.
IE on the PC seems to have a "bug" when it comes to rendering
fonts sized with em values.
The "gradiations of change" between medium > smaller > smallest
are extreme in this browser/platform combination, and anything
below about 0.9em can be unreadable with smaller and smallest
settings.
Why is this an issue if the user can change the font size setting in
their browser?
A site I worked on went live with font sizes specified in em values.
Within the first week, we had five e-mails from folks who could not
read the copy as it was too small.
After some discussions with other Web designers/developers, it
seems that in some cases, IE can install with the text size set to
smaller by default. This is an issue is the user does not know that
they can, in fact, change this setting. Hence, they come to a site
with em font sizes specified, and upon encountering some very
small text, turn away in disgust.
This "bug" in IE does not seem to occur with font sizes specified in
% values. In theory, 90% and 0.9em should be the same size text,
but at the smaller and smallest setting in IE, they are not.
The solution to this issue seems to be to use font sizes specified
in % rather than em.
Leo.
Leo Smith
Web Designer/Developer
USM Office of Publications and Marketing
University of Southern Maine
207-780-4774
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From: Tom Gilder
Date: Tue, Oct 29 2002 7:56PM
Subject: Re: Font size question
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On Tuesday, October 29, 2002, 9:28:02 PM, Leo Smith wrote:
> The solution to this issue seems to be to use font sizes specified
> in % rather than em.
The problem being that you then run into problems with Opera. Opera
calculates % incorrectly, making text 1px smaller than it should be.
The easiest way around both these bugs is to use em sizing for
everything, except the base font, where you do:
body {
font-size: 80%;
font-family: verdana, etc, sans-serif;
}
html>body {
font-size: .8em;
}
Hopefully Opera will fix this (incredibly annoying) bug for v7.
Cheers
--
Tom Gilder
http://tom.me.uk/
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From: Leo Smith
Date: Wed, Oct 30 2002 3:01PM
Subject: Re: Font size question
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great idea Tom...
thanks!
leo.
On 30 Oct 2002, at 2:48, Tom Gilder wrote:
> On Tuesday, October 29, 2002, 9:28:02 PM, Leo Smith wrote:
> > The solution to this issue seems to be to use font sizes specified
> > in % rather than em.
>
> The problem being that you then run into problems with Opera. Opera
> calculates % incorrectly, making text 1px smaller than it should be.
>
> The easiest way around both these bugs is to use em sizing for
> everything, except the base font, where you do:
>
> body {
> font-size: 80%;
> font-family: verdana, etc, sans-serif;
> }
>
> html>body {
> font-size: .8em;
> }
>
> Hopefully Opera will fix this (incredibly annoying) bug for v7.
>
>
> Cheers
> --
> Tom Gilder
> http://tom.me.uk/
>
>
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>
Leo Smith
Web Designer/Developer
USM Office of Publications and Marketing
University of Southern Maine
207-780-4774
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