RE: Why testing text-only resizing?

Text-only resizing is not required for a WCAG audit. The normative text of Success Criterion 1.4.4 (Resize text) states "Except for captions and images of text, text can be resized without assistive technology up to 200 percent without loss of content or functionality."

Note that it does not say how the text must be resized.

Sufficient Technique G142 states "Using a technology that has commonly-available user agents that support zoom". When this success criterion was published in 2008, Internet Explorer 6 was still very common and only supported text-only resizing. Back then, you did have to test that.

However, for the last ten years or so, all major browsers in widespread use have supported page zoom, so there is no longer a requirement to test text-only resizing.

That said, if you want to go beyond what WCAG requires, there is no reason why you shouldn't test text-only resizing. Any well designed website should be able to accommodate 200% text resizing. However, you may struggle to get developers to fix any issues unless your organisation has a commitment to exceed WCAG.

Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd


From: Laurie-Anne Gignac <laurie-anne.gignac@umontreal.ca>
Sent: 15 March 2022 15:01
To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Why testing text-only resizing?

Hi,
I'm a beginner in the world of accessibility, and even if I know HTML and CSS, I'm not a developer. I'm working on the content of our website (university library). https://bib.umontreal.ca/

I did the Introduction to Web Accessibility course on edX. And trying do to a report to my superiors about "Easy checks": https://www.w3.org/WAI/test-evaluate/preliminary/

We have a responsive website. So, when someone zoom in the browser, everything is bigger. At 200%, the look change to something that looks like a mobile view. So everything is fine (maybe 2-3 little things).... But in the Easy checks, it says a text-only zoom. Our site is not as good as in browser zoom. The items in the menu are not completely visible, text overlap, etc.

I'm not sure to understand why we want to check for text-only? I will have to explain it to my superiors why it is important, so I would like to know. :)

I imagine that our solution is in the techniques for text containers to resize? I'm not a programmer, but I would like to point to the IT team how they can correct.

Thanks,
Laurie-Anne

Ps: I hope my message is understandable. I'm French so there might have some mistakes. :)


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Laurie-Anne Gignac
Bibliothécaire - édimestre
Direction des bibliothèques, Université de Montréal
Teams<https://teams.microsoft.com/l/chat/0/0?users=%3claurie-anne.gignac@umontreal.ca%3e>

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