- From: Andy Budd <andy@message.uk.com>
- Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 16:57:40 +0100
- To: W <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Tina Holmboe wrote: >> But is that an accessibility issue, a usability issue, or a personal >> preference? > > The desire to change it is a personal preference, the ability to do > so > an accessibility issue. Is the ability to resize the width of a layout an accessibility issue, a usability issue or just *ones* personal preference (not user preference)? Personally I think your answer is a little trite. Are you saying that anything that gets in the way of ones personal preferences is, by definition, an accessibility issue! Personally I see accessibility being about accessing the content, not customising it in any way you personally see fit. Pretty much all the arguments I've heard so far are based on peoples personal 'preferences'. Sure it's a nice idea that layouts expand if the text is expanded. It's true that when lines of text get very short they can get more difficult to read. However, is this an accessibility issue? If so, surly the techniques need to say that all units need to be em's as % don't give you this ability? If you use % rather than em's, the converse can happen. i.e. you can get very long lines of text that can also be difficult to read when text sizes are small. When text sizes are large, lines of text can still become bunched up and less than optimal reading length. If you base your layout on em's, at very large text sizes, you can cause horizontal scroll bars. Do you feel that this is less of an 'accessibility' issue than narrow lines of text? Anyway, if a user wishes to up the size of their text, who is to say that they want the layout to change as well. It sounds to me that you are just imposing your own personal preferences on the user, without thinking about their wishes. I've discussed this issue on various accessibility, usability and web design forums/mailing lists and all I get is personal bias. What I'm interested in is hearing what the official WAI line is. Andy Budd http://www.message.uk.com/
Received on Tuesday, 17 August 2004 15:57:43 UTC