Posted by Jim Higson on 12/21/07 11:26

Toby Inkster wrote:

> Jim Higson wrote:
>
>> What to do?
>
> Don't be part of the problem.

Good call. There seems to be an arms race at the moment over who can have
the smallest text, especially at sites to do with HTML design.

1) Text is a bit big, but small text is where it's at, yo
2) Reduce by 10%
3) Users increase text size to compensate
4) Goto 1

The problem is, if I trust my users to have setup their browser properly,
how many will have? And of those who have set their font size, how many
will have set it while looking at the typical site which scales it down?

At a quick count, about 60% of the CSS Zen layouts on the front page are too
small for me to read if I set the font-size to be how I like it at 100%.

Eg:
http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/176/176.css&page=0
http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/178/178.css&page=0

Now, these are not pages styled by amateurs. Their authors should be the
ones who understand accessibility and respecting user preferences more than
anyone. Is there any reason very small text would be considered to the
spirit of the web standards?

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