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

Barney Carroll barney at textmatters.com
Fri Feb 2 05:51:35 CST 2007


Shawn K. Quinn wrote:
> Any decent browser already has this functionality built in: Ctrl-plus
> and Ctrl-minus in Firefox, among others. Trying to duplicate this with
> extra places to click that might not even work is what I consider to be
> a bad idea.

Again, it depends on how much credit you want to give your users. If the 
user has significant difficulties with the average font-size, chances 
are they know all about browser font-size mods and use them by default 
anyway, but I still think it's a nice little touch. Like javascript 
print functions and permanent links. Make it unobtrusive.

Many major newspaper sites use this tool - this is because they have a 
fundamental interest in typography, and realise the user is there to 
read large sections of text. In circumstances like this, I often like to 
play about a bit to make the text size just right for me - it's not so 
much that I couldn't do it without the icons, but they remind me of the 
ability and have it within easy reach - I don't have to lift my eyes or 
my cursor away from the content to customise my experience.

The only one of these popular on-site-controls I really have an 
objection to is the 'email this page to a friend'. Now /that's/ what I 
call unnecessary convoluted compromise.


Regards,
Barney



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