Posted by Dylan Parry on 11/14/06 10:37

K A Nuttall wrote:

> I saw a .net article using html { font-size: 100%; } the other day.
> What's that all about? Is it a hack?

Yes and no. 100% is the same as the keyword "medium", but unlike that
keyword it works properly across different browsers. It also /fixes/ an
"em" bug that shows in Internet Explorer (<=6 not sure about 7) that
means font sizes scale badly.

> It's all well and good people harking on about liquid layouts and
> medium typeface defaults, but not all sites want to look like techie
> blogs. I work with graphic designers who regularly produce layouts
> with some 11 and 12px fonts. It's what many people want.

No. It's what *designers* with 20-20 vision want. "Many" users aren't
blessed with such perfect vision - I'm certainly not, and I'm only 24.

> Using a default size of 'medium' works on the assumption that most
> people are using the default of a medium=16px typeface. Setting the
> page container to 62.15% reduces that to 10px.

You can't assume this.

> Then individual sections can be sized-up again easily to match a
> designer's font specifications.

Again, the *designer's* specification. What do designers know about
usability? From what you're saying, SFA.

> This is just one way to do it. But it's a way that's easy to work
> with pre-determined font-sizes, in a graphic design.

Webdesign is *not* graphic design. Graphic design is making pretty
pictures for posters and other such *printed* media. The Web is not a
printed medium, and the sooner designers understand this, the better.

> The next thing to do is to design your pages assuming that users CAN
> and WILL resize their default font size. This means allowing for
> fluid box heights and wrapping text, and testing for it.

One of the things that has pissed me off recently, more than anything
else, is having to hit ctrl and + as soon as a page finishes loading.
What's even worse is that the average user doesn't even _know_ that they
can do that to increase the font size on a page they can't read.

Do you think that said user will hang around and try to read the page,
or are they going to shout "grr" and leave your page?

--
Dylan Parry
http://electricfreedom.org | http://webpageworkshop.co.uk

Programming, n: A pastime similar to banging one's head
against a wall, but with fewer opportunities for reward.

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