[thelist] Layout Stability

[Stephen Rider]

Felix --

On Nov 7, 2007, at 10:09 PM, Felix Miata wrote:

> The web is not inherently constrained by your choice of  
> resolutions. Its
> very nature is one of constraint unknowns.
>
> When one designs entirely using em instead of px, those unknowns don't
> matter. As long as the default size of an average text character is
> maintained in reasonable proportion to window size, screen  
> resolution matters
> not one iota. As a consequence, when actually designing for the  
> web's maximum
> potential and inherent nature, screen resolution is entirely  
> irrelevant.

This is not entirely accurate.

I have okay-but-not-great vision.  I'm relatively young (mid 30s) and  
have been wearing bifocals for almost 10 years.

I routinely upsize fonts on web sites.  I also have my defaults set  
to 14 or 16.  Both of these cause problems on well-meaning sites that  
base _everything_ relative to font-size.  I've seen a lot of sites  
where sizing the font to a comfortably readable level makes the page  
so wide that I have to side scroll.

I thought it a point worth making.  I MUCH prefer sites that pick a  
reasonable content width and stick to it.  Fonts and such should  
still be relative so they can be resized in any browser.  Unless I'm  
putting the font size up to truely gigantic sizes, a well-done site  
works just fine like this.

Stephen