- From: William Loughborough <love26@gorge.net>
- Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2000 07:02:35 -0700
- To: Anne Pemberton <apembert@crosslink.net>, "Gregory J. Rosmaita" <unagi69@concentric.net>, Kynn Bartlett <kynn-edapta@idyllmtn.com>
- Cc: Web Content Accessiblity Guidelines Mailing List <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
At 10:00 AM 10/21/00 -0700, Anne Pemberton wrote:
>I am completely flummoxed by the notion that browsers allow magnification
>of text but not graphics
They "magnify" the graphics as well as the text but since the graphics are
made up of little dots, when they are magnified a lot they look like an
expanding galaxy of stars. Text on the other hand is automagically
transformed into larger font sizes, not just dot-by-dot enlarged so it
looks like the little letters get big. The "thumbnails" you allude to are
actually minifications of larger graphics which will actually have more
resolution but going bigger will have (noticeably at higher magnifications)
the opposite effect.
The problem comes about when the "text-as-image" carries semantics - in
which case that becomes unavailable to a user who must magnify. The
solutions are simply unavailable to a bunch of people because: those that
work well aren't implemented in the usual browsers (none in some cases);
the people who most need this stuff are often saddled with old equipment
and (dare I be autobiographical?) old age. Even when I was young I bridled
at changing to certain "new-fangled" items (I still use a text editor
called qedit from 14 years ago!).
The reason that the alt="text" doesn't work is that in all too many
instances the text is crammed into a little box and its major expansion via
"magnification" makes it way beyond just inconvenient to get at.
Remember, us old folks need all the help we can get.
--
Love.
ACCESSIBILITY IS RIGHT - NOT PRIVILEGE
Received on Saturday, 21 October 2000 10:04:31 UTC