Text Resizing
Whose job is it anyway?
Posted 06 Oct 2007, early afternoon.
Tagged with accessibility, best practice, browsers, software, web design.
A few weeks ago, Ian Lloyd posted an article on Accessify (Teach a Man to Fish) with an instructional video demonstrating how to resize text in various browsers and how to customise the UI to make this job easier. A transcript is also available.
As I’ve said before, I don’t believe it’s our responsibility as Web designers to replicate or provide control over browser functionality; it’s important for users to realise that these features are part of their browser so that they can make use of these tools on any website.
To some extent, I also question the value of us providing instructions; the sheer range of device, OS, browser and assistive technology combinations - further complicated by varying skill and experience levels demonstrated by users - makes this effort futile and likely to cause more confusion.
That said, I think Ian’s video is a good example of the sort of information that should be available to users. Perhaps a central resource of similar advice on a wider range of features would be something to aim for.
