Re: Agenda: Low Vision Task Force 23 Aug 2019

Andrew Somers composed on 2019-08-21 21:26 (UTC-0700):

> Of course 1u does not yet exist, nor the support — for a unit like 1u to be
> really useful, browsers, phones, etc, would need a setting where the user could
> enter their normal preferred viewing distance, which the user agent would then
> use with the display PPI to determine the size to render 1u to make it fit to
> 22 arc minutes.

More units are not needed. All that's needed is to put a stop to abuse of existing
units, and users.

1rem already exists, and could be a perfect unit for all purposes. The user picks
an optimal size to equal 1rem. That choice automatically accounts for acuity and
viewing distance. That size as to anyone or anything but himself becomes
immutable. The computer computes how many device pixels are required to produce
1rem or any fraction or multiple thereof. No logical px unit is needed. For
bitmaps, the computer computes an appropriate way to convert from pixels to rem
according to context. There's no need for designers to depend on device px ratios
or apply special handling for "high DPI" or any of the other kludges to pretend to
accommodate varying physical densities or screen resolutions or visual acuity. In
short, a web designer designs perspectives, but the user has automatic and
complete control over how those perspectives translate into physical sizes.

CSS should never have included the px unit. It's the reason why the web is so hard
to use, and to design for. Deprecate the px unit ASAP, and soon after eliminate
its support from web design elements other than bitmap images.
-- 
Evolution as taught in public schools is religion, not science.

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

Received on Thursday, 22 August 2019 05:22:16 UTC