[Javascript] Accessibility (discussion)

[Paul Novitski]

Hey Troy,

When you set out to help people it's important not to make too many 
assumptions about what they want.  For example, if you assume that 
when someone widens their browser window they would like the web page 
to enlarge to fill the space, you're going to please a few people and 
irritate a whack of others.  For example, I nearly always work with 
windows maximized on the PC, but I do not want websites to shout at 
me.  When I pop from one application to another it's nice to have 
text at similar sizes.

Similarly, many people will have a reason to narrow the window to 
reveal just part of the page at a readable scale, and if you assume 
that they want the entire page to shrink to 200 pixels wide you'll 
probably just force people to turn off javascript on your sites or 
find what they're looking for somewhere less aggravating.

Modern browsers can zoom independently of window resizing, so I 
suggest that you don't really need to provide either capability and 
you shouldn't lock the two together by default.  As always, the web 
is about letting the user decide.  Provide the tools if you like, but 
let the user choose when to turn them on.

Regards,

Paul
__________________________

Paul Novitski
Juniper Webcraft Ltd.
http://juniperwebcraft.com