[thelist] Site check please rocky-hills.com

Felix Miata mrmazda at ij.net
Sun Sep 18 07:04:07 CDT 2005


Scott Glasgow wrote Sun, 18 Sep 2005 01:38:04 -0400:

> Felix Miata wrote:

> > Scott Glasgow wrote:

> > [re: http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/SS/rocky.png &
> > http://www.rocky-hills.com/sample/mfh/index.shtml]

> >> I would think that
> >> most users with that level of lack of visual acuity might be using
> >> either a reader or a magnifier in any event.

> > That screenshot implies absolutely zip about anyone's visual acuity.
 
> This is an utter non sequitur. Your judicious quoting, not too surprisingly,
> omitted the context in which that statement was made. Furthermore, your
> churlish attempt to make it appear that I was commenting on your asinine
> screenshot, with the "[re: http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/SS/rocky.png &" above,
> is nothing more than a red herring. In point of fact, neither of the two
> lines shown preceding my statement above actually appeared in the message to
> which I replied, and there was NO mention of the screenshot, nor any
> reference to it, nor any URL for it provided. At _NO_ point in my message
> did I mention or refer to any screenshot of any kind produced by anyone.
> Therefore, your reply in this statement has precisely nothing to do with my
> statement that you partially quoted to precede it.
 
> Furthermore, for the sake of argument, even had I referred to a screenshot
> in my statement, you cannot state with any authority what might have been
> inferred by a viewer, only what _you_ inferred.

Well if I inferred wrong I'm sorry, but your statement above that I was
replying to was "that level of lack of visual acuity".

So, let me reconstruct the subthread to provide a complete context, omitting
all new quoting except the URL provided by Amy Johnson (at
http://lists.evolt.org/archive/Week-of-Mon-20050912/175778.html) from
which I started the subthread:

[paste from post by Felix Miata at
http://lists.evolt.org/archive/Week-of-Mon-20050912/175778.html]
> http://www.rocky-hills.com/sample/mfh/index.shtml

http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/SS/rocky.png

Definitely not designed to be accessible. With zoom, it turns into an
overlapping text mess, except for the text in images, which at a tiny
fraction of the size of the UI text is nothing but microscopic scribble.
Without zoom, such as using IE, the content text is also nothing but
microscopic scribble. Have a look at
http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/auth/defaultsize.html#note1 [end paste]

[paste from post by Ken Schaefer at
http://lists.evolt.org/archive/Week-of-Mon-20050912/175779.html]
It might look microscopic at your particular resolution and pixel density,
but on any mainstream monitor at default IE settings the text is perfectly
readable. [end paste]

[paste from post by Chrisitan Heilman at
http://lists.evolt.org/archive/Week-of-Mon-20050912/175780.html]
looks ok here, too (Firefox / OSx). But the menu is a problem - when
you resize the text it overlaps and part of the text get cut off.

Felix, you've been down this road before on the CSS-D list. It is
great to make people aware of accessiblity and text resizing issues,
but using a worst case scenario screen resolution on a non-mainstream
operating system will result in more people getting annoyed than
listening to what you - and likeminded people - have to say. [end paste]

[paste from post by Scott Glasgow at
http://lists.evolt.org/archive/Week-of-Mon-20050912/175781.html]
Glad to see your response; I was wondering if it was just me. I had to zoom 
in four times (Firefox) before serious layout degradation occurred, and the 
defaults looked just fine to me in FF, Opera, and IE. I would think that 
most users with that level of lack of visual acuity might be using either a 
reader or a magnifier in any event. I was also kinda curious as to how one 
designs _any_ layout that survives zoom to essentially any arbitrary level 
of magnification. Seems like the old "10 pounds in a 5 pound bag" problem, 
ya know. [end paste]

Now that everyone can see in one place the entire portion of the
subthread to which you replied (with attribution), what other inference
than the one I made was possible for your meaning of "that level of lack
of visual acuity"? Exactly what did you mean by "that level of lack of
visual acuity"?

NAICT within the context of the subthread, is seems to me that your 4X
zoom was an attempt to approximate the text size in my screenshot, in
which case it would have failed unless your starting default was 1/2 of
mine (since I was at 200%) while you were using the same physical pixel
density.

While you're explaining, how exactly is it that a screenshot can be
"asinine"? All any screenshot is is an opportunity for others to see
exactly what someone else saw exactly as it was seen, albiet "exactly"
requires that it be viewed on the same size display at the same
resolution from the same distance to do so.

> > The simple fact is that 12px (set on body in
> > http://www.rocky-hills.com/sample/mfh/style.css) at 1792x1344
> > resolution is less than half the size of typical newspaper front page
> > copy on my 19" CRT and probably even also on a 22" CRT display. Even
> > at a much more common 1280 wide resolution 12px is far too small,
> > making the page painful if stuck using IE
 
> Well, plainly and simply, horsepucky. In my remark about visual acuity I
> speak from some small experience. I'm in my mid-50's 

As I....

> and have been wearing glasses for presbyopia for 10 years. 

...have been doing considerably longer than 10 years.

> I viewed the page at 1600 x 1200 on my
> ThinkPad R50p's 15" LCD screen, in its native format and without any
> zooming, and it was sharp, clear, and entirely legible.

Well then your definition of "entirely legible" isn't the same as
everyone else's. Neither does your reply refer to any comfort level,
which is a better measure of user experience than legibility level.
Best comfort level should be the same size as the user preference,
which should in turn be the same as the browser preference setting.
By setting text size in px you ensure that a user can experience his
maximum comfort level only as a matter of chance.

Here's a screenshot that should be really close to what you saw on your
laptop, but using the actual DPI of 1600x1200 on a true 15" diagonal
display of approximately 133, which makes the pt sized UI controls
larger than the 96 DPI doze standard or the 120 DPI "large font" option
that high resolution laptops typically have enabled by their
manufacturers: http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/SS/rocky3.png . When I view that
image on a 16" true diagonal display (the smallest display I have
connected to anything here ATM), I measure the capital letters in the
center paragraph to be 1.5mm tall. Compare that to the superior
letterforms of front page newspaper copy (St Petersbug Times is 2.5mm).
While it may be "entirely legible" by pasting my nose up close enough to
the display, 60% of the height of newspaper copy is far from
comfortable. For reference, I quit buying newspapers several years ago
because their 2.0mm-2.5mm copy was just too tiring to deal with.

> Very, very far from
> painful, in fact. 

For anything other than a brief glance and from a reasonable viewing
distance, it truly is painful for me to try to read through the whole
page so configured.

> On my 19" CRT at 1280 x 1024 it was even more readable, as
> might be expected. Were I to have to zoom in four levels to make the text
> readable, I can assure you that my prescription would be much, much
> stronger, and my visual acuity correspondingly lower. Hence the statement
> that you took such issue with and yet completely failed to address in your
> reply. The paragraph above, and the neat but nugatory math following, are
> completely meaningless with regard to actual user experience.

Comparing the size of text on a puter display to the size of newspaper
copy is anything but irrelevant. You choose to zoom 4 levels. Why?
Certainly 4X zoom would make the text considerably bigger than
newsprint, and would indicate some pretty poor visual acuity if such a
size were required just to read it, but what does it provide as a
relevant response to what I wrote that you replied to?

> You know, that
> elusive goal toward which we're supposed to be striving?

Pleasant, accessible, non-discriminatory, & comfortable maybe?
 
> > http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/SS/rocky2.png . A 12px character box
> > provides about 72 discrete dots per character box compared to my 20px
> > preference's 200, a dismal 36%.

> <<::SNIP::>>

> >> I was also kinda curious as to how one
> >> designs _any_ layout that survives zoom to essentially any arbitrary
> >> level of magnification. Seems like the old "10 pounds in a 5 pound
> >> bag" problem, ya know.

> > It really isn't hard once you understand a simple basic shown here:
> > http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/auth/widths-em-v-px.html
 
> I frankly fail to see the relevance of the example to my inquiry. Your own
> example, presuming that this is your example, illustrates that regardless of
> whether one font sizing method or the other is chosen the layout under
> discussion would be broken. 

Sizing text at the user preference, and containers in propoportion to
the resulting text size would break that page? That seems a seriously
sweeping assumption to me.

Discussion of dot boxes is all about quality, again related to user
experience. The more dots to depict with, the better the quality, the
better the experience. 640x480 is just plain awful, and it's entirely
because so few pixels are available to get the job done. Conversely,
2048x1536 is awesome by comparison, and 1600x1200 is excellent too.

> One, your chosen approach, produces a constant
> line count (although not physical paragraph height),

Why are "we" trying to make everything a constant in this inherently
fluid medium? Is not line length considered by most to be relevant to
usability?

> and a continually
> varying paragraph width, while one, the approach which you so decry, yields
> a varying number of lines, and paragraph heights, but does at least result
> in constant paragraph width.

Isn't it a marvelous "constant" design that permits one viewer to be
seeing 15 words per line while another sees 7 or less? To me the much
better constant is line length. We aren't discussing posters, books, or
magazines here. The physical width is different depending also on
display size, and may need to differ according to viewport size and
pixel density, depending on who's determining the need.

> Frankly, as either
> user or developer, I prefer the one which provides at least one dimension of
> constancy.
 
As I. That dimension to me is comfortable sized text, which I've duly
recorded as my browser preference, which in turn I would hope to see on
most of most web pages instead of on the dismal few that is the actual
current state of the web.

Pixel sized text totally disregards user wishes and needs. I can't see
that it's possible for users to have the best possible, let alone a
good, experience by totally disregarding their needs and/or wishes this
way.
-- 
"Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you."
                                                Psalm 55:22 NIV

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409

Felix Miata  ***  http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/auth/



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