Re: Font Sizes

On 10/27/05, Amanda.Song@nokia.com <Amanda.Song@nokia.com> wrote:
>
>
> Hello Best Practices Working Group,
>
> I read the Mobile Web Best practices document and under the topic of
> Measurements, you mention that people should use relative units, but I
> think it is important to mention explicitly the problems with using
> pixel units. I would like to steer web site developers away from using
> pixels as a form of measurement AT ALL, whether that be font size,
> border size, margins, padding, etc. For example, with our new high
> resolution devices, a 12 pixel font is unreadable. This requires us to
> calculate the screen resolution, then apply a special multiplier in
> order for the font to be legible. I don't really think that this is
> what the web site developer wants or intends for us to have to do in
> order to properly render their site.


Hello Amanda,
what if the site owner WANTED the font to be 12 pixels? Are you saying that
you make it bigger regardless of what the author wanted?

This is exactly what generates (generated) device diversity!

I agree with the idea of using relative sizes, but I am sorry to say that
I'm not quite happy with your choice of making the font bigger.

The only other thing I would mention here has to do with images. With
> higher resolution devices, the size of the image also is reduced, so
> that might be something that the web developer should keep in mind as
> well. I am not sure the following statement is true: "An exception to
> this being where an image has been specifically sized for a display,
> references to the image in markup may specify the exact dimensions of
> the image in order to help the browser to flow the page, and avoid
> re-flowing it after the page has been retrieved. " I would ask "Which
> display?". My high resolution Nokia device, my low resolution Nokia
> device, or my desktop? The bottom line here is that pages should be
> developed in a resolution independent way.
>
>
Maybe we should rephrase it?
What is meant is that if the site recognizes the device (the one the user is
using to browse) and has a content adaptation software that automatically
resizes the image to fit the screen "perfectly" then the software might use
the exact image width and height to make the browser's life easier.

--

Andrea Trasatti
atrasatti@gmail.com
Personal Blog: http://trasatti.blogspot.com