Re: Pixel, Points and Spatial Measures

Hi Wayne,

> I can look up common platforms and compute the pixel size needed to achieve critical print size. 

Amazon lists 1920x1080 monitors from 10” to 27” [1], so I can use the same platform (e.g. Windows) and have 5 desktop monitors of different sizes, each with the same resolution, therefore a different physical size for the text by almost a factor of 3. 
I can buy a 13” Dell Inspiron with a 1980x1280 resolution, or a 13” XPS and get 3200x1800 (probably displayed as 1600x900 in CSS pixels). 

It is a relative medium, you can’t get around that.

More to the point, tackling the problem from the screen-end of the equation makes it un-testable in any meaningful way. I.e. I would test the same site and get different results from you.

Any form of testing actual text size would have to come down to the (browser calculated) CSS pixel size.


> We then put it in a bunch of tables as guidelines for platform types with guidance on how to use them. Once we have spread sheets with the proper formulas, mostly trigonometric, we can update our tables to match common platforms in use with technique updates. Will it be perfect, no. Will it be better than what we do. Yes a lot.
    
Why not create those tables, and *if* you can get to some standard (which I’m sceptical is possible), then work out the baseline CSS pixel size that equates to, and use that?

Also, in the context of manipulate-able content (e.g. zoom), what would defining this size achieve?

Are you aiming to say something like: At 400% text should be at least 48px. (I.e. the default text size should be at least 12px so that you can get to 48px with browser controls.)

Kind regards,

-Alastair

Side note:
> The mean critical print size for text on  paper and computer has been calculated. Web developers will want to use this because people won't read there site if they deviate to much from that value. That is a well established fact. It is generally about .347cm on paper and .416cm for computer screens. 

For others benefit: “Critical print size” is the smallest print size below which reading speed begins to decline sharply.

Do you know *when* that was established? Most of the research I’ve seen was from the 96/72DPI desktop era, I would be surprised if modern screens were that different from paper, they have improved a lot.

Also, there is quite a wide variation in text sizes used on websites, so I would dispute that people don’t want to deviate from that. E.g. BBC 14px for body text, Telegraph uses 17px.

1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=sr_nr_p_n_feature_browse-b_4?fst=as%3Aoff&rh=n%3A340831031%2Cn%3A428652031%2Ck%3Amonitor+1920%2Cp_n_feature_keywords_browse-bin%3A1628557031%2Cp_n_feature_browse-bin%3A319910031%7C319914031&keywords=monitor+1920&ie=UTF8&qid=1484326937&rnid=319909031

Received on Friday, 13 January 2017 17:06:58 UTC