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This is an ongoing topic at WebmasterWorld and many other design communities. There are two sides to this issue as mentioned recently. Those on the relative side and those on the fixed side. I am currently on the fixed side.
I see many topics about Opera, Mozilla and Netscape, along with a host of other browsers not so widely used. We do discuss IE, but it tends to be on the negative side because we all know it has its faults. So do other browsers. Plus, IE is a MS product and we know there is an anti MS movement in close proximity. ;)
When discussing the issue of font sizes, my personal opinion is that the accessibility arguments are not as worrisome as some may think. I feel that if a user has accessibility issues, they will do one of the following things...
1. Adjust their system preferences to accomodate the disability or accessbility issue.
2. Install 3rd party software which offers accessibility features beyond the default options.
3. Utilize a browser that is known for its accessbility support.
Let's talk about Option 1 above. Believe it or not, IE does have accessibility options. Unfortunately they are not as highly visible as they should be. For example, in IE, go to...
IE > Tools > Internet Options > General > Accessibility
...and select Ignore font sizes specified on web pages..
If a user has a visual disability, I'm going to assume that they understand their computer and know how to adjust for this. The above accessbility option in IE is great for overriding fixed font sizes.
There are three other options in that Accessibility tab...
1. Ignore colors specified on Web pages.
2. Ignore font styles specified on Web pages.
3. Format documents using my style sheet.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for accessibility and it has been at the top of my priority list ever since reading the...
Bobby Approved - W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 [w3.org]
Bobby Approved - U.S. Section 508 Guidelines [access-board.gov]
I just can't let go of the control! I'm sticking with my 11/12/13px Verdana, 12/13/14px Arial and 13/14/15px Tahoma until such time that ems and percentages are fully supported and I learn how to design a layout that is totally relative! ;)
...my personal opinion is that the accessibility arguments are not as worrisome as some may think. I feel that if a user has accessibility issues, they will do one of the following things...
That's been my experience with the few people I know who have strong needs. In the long run, accessibility is mostly going to be resolved by user agents and helper apps. The way it looks to me, the great majority of web page authors simply WON'T address accessibility.
But with the US disability laws currently on the books, government agencies and their subcontractors will have to do it.
Frankly, I really want to use px. This em and percentage stuff, which I use in all my pages, is really *limiting*. But I don't want to make my page inaccessible because of IE's bug.
That is their choice but they can reap the whirlwind and cough up when more things like this happen. Even though they were done for non usage of alt tags it was their failure to even try that got them in hot water.
[news.bbc.co.uk...]
A private citizen succeeded in winning $20,000 (Aus) in damages, on 6 November, 2001, after a ruling that the Olympics portal caused "unjustifiable hardship" in failing to meet accessibility standards.
The use of relative fonts does not mean that you lose all control in your page, with relative layouts and fluid design there is no reason why a page cannot look good in range or formats.
A while back I was getting feedback on a couple of sites and I got quite a high percentage of respondents who said they found it really annoying that sites “made” them have to view the page with fixed fonts.
>>I'm sticking with my 11/12/13px
If you work on any public sector sites I don’t think it will take long before top level management ensure accessibility to avoid costly (both bad PR and cost) law suits.
Here is a bit about the UK initiative that has been in place for a while and I am waiting for the first educational site to be sued (it will be entertaining :))
[ukcle.ac.uk...]
Here is the full UK act: Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 [hmso.gov.uk]
I think it only takes a bit of effort to avoid the grief, sly trick really, but it you say you are working on but you know it is big project I am certain you could give yourself that little bit more time to actually meet the requirements
FYI a page about using and implementing relative fonts:
[diveintoaccessibility.org...]
Cheers
If a user has a visual disability, I'm going to assume that they understand their computer
... Why?
I've seen quite a lot of users in the academic world who have had their font size set to largest in IE by someone else at some point in the past. When sites still appear with small text, they view the site as "not letting them" have big text.
Secondly, in the next version of Windows, all windows can be enlarged and the contents will be resized to fit. What this will mean is that text and graphics in IE will be enlarged.
Of course if the user has a small screen, this won't be as good as upping the font size in Opera or Mozilla.
Another thing IE6 users can do is create their own stylesheet with large text in it, black and white colours, etc. This can then be set to over-ride the styles used on web pages via the built-in Accessibility menu mentioned earlier.
This can then be set to over-ride the styles used on web pages via the built-in Accessibility menu mentioned earlier
I only just found out about this today and I like ot bang on about accessibility.
How many people will be able to find that option, let alone impliment a solution?
Not many I supsect.
Another thing IE6 users can do is create their own stylesheet
Talk to people who can barely use a browser. Will they be able to create their own stylesheet? I doubt it, to say the least.
