And I'm jumping in even later than Mia, but better late than never!
W3C say "Web browsers and Web sites should be designed following WAI guidelines so that people can easily change text sizes and colors."
That's here: http://www.w3.org/WAI/changedesign#alldoit
The BBC's pages [http://www.bbc.co.uk/accessibility/] are really nicely optimised with both text-sizing and zoomable actions explained. Seems like best practice to me. There are now so many browsers and so many platforms, in so many different shapes, that to my mind, you need a couple of reliable ways at least to achieve the desired happy reading result.
In my experience of publishing www.disabilityartsonline.org.uk [which has text sizing and supports zooming] and through Jodi Awards judging, I've seen that vision-impaired users [who often may be young] invariably know what to do to increase text size, however they're using the web. At home, or on their own mobile devices, they're usually pretty up-to-speed about this stuff, because there's time to tune things up to feel comfortable. It's when in a work situation or on someone else's machine that difficulties might occur. So I reckon planning an alternative route is a good direction to take.
I spent a few moments on third sector, local authority and .gov.uk domains sniffing out the general state of play in non-museum spaces. [Here's one: https://www.taxdisc.direct.gov.uk/EvlPortalApp/app/home/textsize] By and large, these sites have text sizing or zooming or both. Accessibility levels - in general - are now very high indeed for most of these kinds of site. There's some great accessibility info pages out there too - would be nice to see who can find the best or the worst! [Here's a good one - http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/accessibility.php]
Would be nice to hear what Chris Power thinks?
Another great MCG thread...
All the best
Jon Pratty
[Obviously, these are my own views, not those of Arts Council England, my employer...]
-----Original Messageu-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Mia
Sent: 26 January 2012 19:18
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: text size vs zoom
I'm jumping in late with a response to 'why offer functionality on the
site that's available in the browser', but it's worth noting some
research that says the vast majority of people never change the
default settings in software: "Less than 5% of the users we surveyed
had changed any settings at all. More than 95% had kept the settings
in the exact configuration that the program installed in." Source:
http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2011/09/14/do-users-change-their-settings/
I can't find a source for whether people with low vision are more
likely to know how to change defaults, but anecdotally I know a few
people who struggle with common text sizes but didn't know they could
change their browser to make it bigger.
Cheers, Mia
--------------------------------------------
http://openobjects.org.uk/
http://twitter.com/mia_out
On 25 January 2012 13:56, Jemima Rellie
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> What are your views on text size vs zoom?
>
> I'd prefer to offer the choice, but is it acceptable only to facilitate
> zoom in 2012?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jemima
>
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> Jemima Rellie, Director Publishing & New Media
> The Royal Collection
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> York House, St James's Palace,
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