Re: Readability of international language scripts

Hi John,

Respectfully, I don't think that's the actual case. In your scenario, using
"browser zoom" or a dedicated screen magnifier doesn't remove ad content,
it only makes that content larger (and *might* also introduce horizontal
scrolling - the reason for Success Criterion 1.4.10 Reflow in WCAG 2.1).
There may be a short-term benefit from moving sidebar content out of the
way via zooming, but at the cost of that horizontal scrolling in some
use-cases.

More to the point, I think at issue is that content authors *choose* to
reduce their font-size (i.e. CSS - body {font-size:80%;} ), reducing the
default browser font-size of 16 pt. down to something very close to 14 pt.
- in other words they are going the wrong direction. I honestly don't think
we'd ever get a WCAG SC in that forbade that (it would be too
prescriptive), but in terms of authoring guidance I think we
collectively might be able to provide more reasons and justifications for
increased font-sizes simply as a matter of course, and feed that
information into things like Project Silver and the tutorial work that is
emerging from EO WG (etc.)

JF

On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 11:48 AM Rochford, John <john.rochford@umassmed.edu>
wrote:

> Hi All,
>
>
>
> In my own user research, people with intellectual disabilities have
> reported they prefer large font sizes. Briefly, if people prefer large font
> sizes because they increase comprehension, I suspect it’s because larger
> font sizes push out distracting content such as advertisements.
>
>
>
> John
>
>
>
> John Rochford
>
> University of Massachusetts Medical School
>
> Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center
> Director, INDEX Program
> Faculty, Family Medicine & Community Health
> www.DisabilityInfo.org
>
> About Me
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> *From:* John Foliot <john.foliot@deque.com>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, January 7, 2020 9:48 AM
> *To:* Steve Lee <stevelee@w3.org>
> *Cc:* public-cognitive-a11y-tf <public-cognitive-a11y-tf@w3.org>; Drake,
> Ted <Ted_Drake@intuit.com>
> *Subject:* Re: Readability of international language scripts
>
>
>
> Hi Steve,
>
>
>
> Good question. From the Summary Conclusion however: "On overall
> preference, more than 50% of the UK participants chose 18 point sans serif,
> whereas more than 50% of Thai participants chose 18 point serif."
>
> I recall back in the day when the W3C CSS WG established the base-line
> font-size for browsers at 16 pt., and then designers promptly modified
> their style sheets to: *body {font-size: 80%;} *(sigh)
>
>
>
> JF
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 7, 2020 at 8:03 AM Steve Lee <stevelee@w3.org> wrote:
>
> Thanks John, that IS fascinating. I wonder if there as size at which
> readability starts to reduce? I understand that is the case with Western
>
> Steve
>
> On 07/01/2020 13:43, John Foliot wrote:
> > but last year at the Web4All conference in San Francisco, there was a
> > young woman who did a presentation along a similar vein. As I recall,
> > she was researching readability of both Western scripts and Thai (??)
> > script, and the somewhat astonishing conclusion she brought forward was
> > that font *SIZE* also had a real
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> *​**John Foliot* | Principal Accessibility Strategist | W3C AC
> Representative
> Deque Systems - Accessibility for Good
> deque.com
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>
>
>


-- 
*​John Foliot* | Principal Accessibility Strategist | W3C AC Representative
Deque Systems - Accessibility for Good
deque.com