J
Jim Royal
Greg Schmidt said:
Perhaps true.
It may also be disingenuous to claim that we designers must respect the
user's choices when in fact the user is relying on us to make those
choices for them.
Perhaps true.
It may also be disingenuous to claim that we designers must respect the
user's choices when in fact the user is relying on us to make those
choices for them.
J
Jim Royal
Duende said:
Rule of thumb traditionally has been ten to twelve words. However,
excessivly long line length is not as bad a problem as excessively
short line length when it comes to readability.
J
Jim Royal
Leif K-Brooks said:
In your particular case, yes that's true. It is not true in the
majority of cases.
Here's a paraphrase of several conversations I've had on this subject:
They: The fonts are too big on this page. Fix it.
Me: I'm not specifying a font size on this page. The size you're seeing
is the default for your browser.
They: It's too big. Just scale it down.
Me: What I'm doing is letting the user have full control over the font
size. If you want a different font size, all you have to do is go to
the View menu and select --
They: What are you talking about? Why do I have to fix the font size
myself?
Me: Making the site this way allows you to pick the size that suits you
best.
They: I don't want to do that. Just fix it.
Me: It really helps with accessibility...
They: Why are you argung with me? Just make the font smaller.
Although "they" might be a little dense on the subject, they have a
valid point. In the name of assessibility, we are bothering the vast
majority of our site visitors with information they don't want to know
about, and have no need to know about. In the name of making things
easier, we are actually making things harder on people. My mother has
been using her Mac for six years and learned about the keyboard
shortcuts for Cut, Copy and Paste only last month. Do you think she's
interested in learning how to adjust her browser to compensate for a
site that has elementary-school-sized text? She's not, and neither are
most people.
Someone in this thread suggested putting instructions on our web sites
to teach people how to compensate for the appearance of oversized
fonts. I can't believe this. We're actually posting INSTRUCTIONS on how
to use our web sites in the name of better usability?!?
There are certainly some sites that benefit from leaving the font sizes
at default. And I suppose there may be some sites that benefit from
fonts sizes specified in pixels. But these two are extreme cases.
Better to walk the middle line: Build most sites with a reasonable font
size that is nonetheless scalable in all browsers.
My last word on the subject.
G
Guest
Jim Royal said:
I agree. Picking font sizes just doesnt work anymore - especially with the
sreen dims. I know people on 800x600 as well as 1600x1200 or more.
sm, md, lg..........
M
Mark Parnell
You: That's because I used Verdana. It is larger than other fonts, so looks
big at your preferred size. I will change it to something more normal.
<jingle of money in your pocket from happy client>.
D
delerious
The default font for IE 5.5, Mozilla 1.5, and Opera 7.23 is Times New Roman 12
pt/16 pixel font. I find this not to be large all all. You are saying most
people do?
M
Michael Wilcox
Jim Royal said:
This practice isn't unheard of. By coincidence, I just found instructions at
the University of MN site (huge-volume):
http://www1.umn.edu/twincities/textsize/
Google for more: http://www.google.com/search?q=changing+browser+text+size
M
Mark Parnell
I notice they already have instructions for IE7.
A bit pre-emptive, don't you think?
T
Toby A Inkster
Jim said:
No, I'm putting instructions on how to use their browsers.
R
rf
Duende said:
The ideal column width is the width of my canvas, minus a possible nav bar.
If *I* decide the column is too narrow or too wide then I will change my
canvas width.
When I enlarge my font size to override bonehead authors who specify
stupidly small fonts then I often have to increase my canvas width as well.
I am used to this.
Cheers
Richard.
R
rf
Michael Wilcox said:
Hmmm.
<quote>
To change the text sizes in Internet Explorer (versions 5.x–6.x) for
Windows, you must first
disable style sheets.
</quote>
It looks like they freely admit that they are using px or pt to size their
fonts and insist that IE viewers use their accessibility options to ignore
these suggestions.
What a crock. Why not just use the correct font size (100%) to start with?
Cheers
Richard.
B
Bob
If you do a little checking, you'll find that even this does not
enforce any particular standard across pages. User settings still
can have an influence on some platforms/browsers. If you want to
see how one company deals with this, take a look at Netscape's
CSS that varies by browser (notice that they only cover the major
browsers).
Depending on the level of compatibility you want, I'd suggest using
HTML or CSS generic sizing (e.g. HTML size 1,2 etc or CSS x-small,
etc).
D
delerious
Also, Jakob Nielsen basically says it is OK for web authors to specify a font
size, as long as it is not a fixed font size and users can change it.
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20020819.html
"It may be okay for the browser to initially render the page with the
designer's text size, but users should be able to easily enlarge text, no
matter what the style sheet says."
B
brucie
it doesn't take long to get sick of having to continually adjust your
browser between sites to compensate for clueless authors. just hitting
the back button is much easier. 75% of visitors leave if they don't like
a sites usability.
L
Leif K-Brooks
But I don't want to change my text size to see your site. I changed it
*once*, and that's the size I want text to be. If you make me do extra
work to get the setting I chose, I will leave.
D
delerious
Can you give me some examples of prominent web sites that do not set the font
size?
D
delerious
So then why does Microsoft's web site override IE's default font size?
Microsoft has made their web site use a font that is much smaller than IE's
default.
T
Toby A Inkster
delerious said:
Because the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.
B
Bob
I disagree. It's easier to read large volumes of text with the
serifs included. Sans-serif is best for titles and similar. There's
no question that sans looks "cleaner" at the initial glance - try
reading a wide column of sans serif text quickly.
B
Bob
So you are suggesting that a site designer can't even choose a size
for paragraphs vs. titles ?