[thelist] increase and decrease font size by clicking on an icon

Christian Heilmann codepo8 at gmail.com
Fri Feb 2 01:57:32 CST 2007


> Hi Bruce,
>
> You may want to try ALA's 'working with alternate stylesheets':
> http://www.alistapart.com/articles/alternate/
>
> (A JavaScript solution).

Or you may not bother. This is what a browser can do for the user much
better than you could ever do. If your font is too small to start
with, then make it bigger. My favourite are font resizing widgets that
are 10 pixel icons, as that is surely what a visual impaired visitor
will be able to use.

Font resizing widgets were all the rage in the first wave of "can we
be sued when we are not accessible" redesigns. They do not however
help unless you also store this information and apply it side-wide, as
you shouldn't expect a user to have to resize on every page. If you
allow the user to resize the font with a browser, then you'll have
that site-wide.

Here's a question: How would a user that needs larger font settings
end up on your site? She'll have larger font in Google or other search
engines, too. Now what is wrong with your site that is right in
Google?

Another problem is that a lot of font-resizing widgets rely on JS
without having a server side fallback. Probably the best solution that
uses both PHP and JS is UDASS: http://www.dustindiaz.com/udasss/

Here's some interesting read on font sizes:
http://www.informationarchitects.jp/100e2r?v=4

HTH
Chris

-- 
Chris Heilmann
Book: http://www.beginningjavascript.com
Blog: http://www.wait-till-i.com
Writing: http://icant.co.uk/



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