Re: Screen Magnification

Laura repeated Jon:
>  I'm not sure that WCAG does all it can do, 
> since it currently allows fixed sized
> containers and text and fixed position content.

Jon said:
> I've been pleased that desktop browsers are using the zoom to change the 
viewport size 
> and thus trigger responsive pages to respond on zoom.

I mentioned this a few posts or weeks ago.  I think we need to recommend 
some advisory techniques here that take advantage of the current 
responsive design paradigms.  We have a combination of several things 
occuring together.  Designers designing pages that respond well to the 
desktop viewport, the tablet viewport, and the phone viewport, commonly 
called "breakpoints" in the design world.  And, I beieve all these are 
done with fixed size containers, but not always.  My point is that it is 
not the case that fixed point necessarily supports or prevents the 
responsive reflow.  It is that the browser changes (or forces) the fixed 
width so that the pages design responds and reflows.  As I mentioned 
earlier, if a user were to tell the browser to behave as if it were a 
phone, then the content 'reflows" to a singluar  column, grids (data 
tables) become cards, etc. such that the user expereince works well for a 
narrow viewport.  If the browser were to allow the user to also (in 
addition to)  increase the fonts and zoom at the same time on the desktop, 
but tricking the page to think it was still in phone mode, then a very 
large single column view would work with just the browser.  That is the 
requirement I would like to add to UAAG.  And I believe that is the 
behavior many end users with low vision want to expereince. 

I think it is simply leting the user specify 3 block text widths: desktop, 
tablet, and phone; but be able to use any one of them while still on a 
desktop or tablet.  If the user sets the font too large then there will be 
horizontal scrolling, but there has to be a narrow limit at some point, 
and I'm suggsting the limit be the phone potrait viewport initially. 

So the test could be something like: When in phone viewport, the page and 
text block reflows by the browser and can suport zoom to 4X with loss of 
functionality.
____________________________________________
Regards,
Phill Jenkins, 
IBM Accessibility