Posted by Neredbojias on 12/11/06 03:49

To further the education of mankind, Ed Seedhouse <eseedhouse@shaw.ca>
vouchsafed:

>>> What about people who don't see so well and have to enlarge your
>>> fonts? What happens to your fixed width sites on a few size
>>> increases?
>
>>Ya know, I've heard that many times. And I am definitely an
>>anti-fixed- width/pro-fluid website fan. However, the though occurs
>>to me it isn't really a valid argument. What about people who see
>>poorly and want to read a book? Sure, they can buy a large-text
>>version (if and when it's available, which is hardly always) or
>>acquired an aural edition, but neither of these comes packaged with
>>the normal, everyday version.
>
> Which is a disadvantage of books and an advantage to the web. When
> web has so many other disadvantages compared to books, we should be
> sure to make use of it's advantages, such as the ability to scale
> automatically to viewport size.

I go along with that, although not exclusively. There are exceptions. For
instance, suppose I wanted to make a web page of a working abacus? The
little doohickeys that go up and down could hardly word wrap with any
semblence of normalcy.

>>While I agree that fixed-width sites should be avoided (both
>>meanings), sight impairment has less to do with it than site
>>impairment.
>
> Believe me, there's a lot of people with site impairment and there
> will be many more in the next decade or two as the baby-boomers age.
> Baby boomers have a lot of money so why drive them away from your
> site?

Uh, baby-boomers were propogated in the years shortly after World War 2.
They're pretty much old fossils by now and probably get acid indigestion
when confronted by computer-related subjects, anyway.

--
Neredbojias
Infinity has its limits.

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