Re: 48px vs 44px target sizing

On 06/09/2016 17:24, Jonathan Avila wrote:
>> As 1 inch=25.4mm, so 6px per mm on the tablet, although that is 2D
>> which I think means 2.5px per non-square mm. Therefore 20mm wide =
>> 50px on that device.
>
> I think this statement is looking the wrong way.  It may be that on
> that device 20mm = 50px -- but that doesn't mean 50px is going to be
> sufficient on other devices because it won't be 20mm.   If they say
> 20mm is what was needed then we'd need to figure out how many CSS
> pixels would 20mm be on a target device.

Are we seriously retreading this conversation? There is no reliable way 
for a developer to determine this. A developer cannot check the actual 
physical screen size of a device, or the actual precise metrics like 
screen DPI, therefore a developer cannot determine with any accuracy 
what actual physical size something is rendered at on an arbitrary 
target device's screen.

> Just looking at an iPad, a 50px button may be sufficient -- but on an
> iPhone 6s the same button is considerably smaller -- likely too small
> for many.

Do you have an actual test page where you verified this? And does the 
page set the ideal viewport of width=device-width?

> I wonder if we could somehow create a relative size
> requirement with some minimum.  Like the size of a control in device
> independent pixels must be no smaller than 1/15 of the smallest
> viewport dimension with a minimum of 50 device independent pixels.

How would a developer/auditor test this with any reliability to ensure 
it's true across devices? The reason for choosing CSS pixels when 
viewport is set to width=device-width is that it's reliably testable, 
AND shifts the onus of having a sensible ideal viewport on devices/user 
agents. Adding a relationship to whatever the device's viewport is 
actually set means that pass/fail will depend on the exact device the 
developer/auditor is using? Assume that an auditor is using a 
device/user agent which, for whatever reason, decided - against what 
most other mainstream devices/browsers do - to adopt a strangely high 
viewport dimension ... this would result in a fail on that particular 
device for a control, while the same control would pass if the auditor 
used another device.

P
-- 
Patrick H. Lauke

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Received on Tuesday, 6 September 2016 16:34:28 UTC