[thelist] Font Sizing

Feingold Josh S Josh.S.Feingold at irs.gov
Tue May 7 07:12:01 CDT 2002


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> (OT/META: What's with all the multipart messages flying around this
> list, anyway?  Text not good enough for any of us?)

For some reason, my text messages get changed to HTML format between my
email client and the evolt server.  I don't know where, or why, but that's
how it goes...

> The answer to both those issues is simple: "Yes, very true.  So what?"

I didn't realize that this was such a religious issue.  I guess I haven't
been around long enough.

My point was only that when I design a site, I am trying to balance
aesthetics with usability.  With this goal in mind, I must consider if the
benefits of making something more aesthetically pleasing outweighs the loss
from less usability. If so, it makes sense to make the trade-off.

When I look at the issue of font sizing, I would imagine that people who
have font issues (e.g. their screen is 2400 x 2400, or whatever, or have
trouble seeing small fonts, experience the problem of fixed fonts daily
around the internet.  As such, they already have tweaked their browsers to
account for this issue, and I can safely ignore it.  This lets me use the
font size that I would like and get additional aesthetic value without
decreasing my usability.

So I guess it comes down to this:  if there is a large portion of sites
which use "incorrect" methods and IT HAS BEEN THIS WAY FOR A LONG TIME so
that almost all browsers allow easy accommodation, and there is no reason
for a user not to make the tweak, can we assume that it is safe to use these
"incorrect" methods going forward?

Josh




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