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Double issue of ALA, with a search engine in Perl, and a backward compatible stylesheet switcher. “So what?” […]

Double issue of ALA, with a search engine in Perl, and a backward compatible stylesheet switcher. “So what?” you say.

I’ve been personally waiting for this styleswitcher not so I can “skin” my site, but so I can offer a large type version. I’ve long suspected (from what I’ve seen in usability tests) that the great majority of people who need to make their fonts bigger have no idea how to. The stylesheet switcher could be used by a designer/coder to create a stylesheet where all the 10pt fonts were replaced with 14pts, and be indicated by a simple “large type version” button in a corner.

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  1. 1
    Anonymous

    If you use small/medium/large or ems for font size values, your users can adjust font size using the web browser’s built in text-sizing options.

  2. 2
    christina

    I do this, however in usability tests I’ve observed that people either don’t know they can change their font size. Often older folks are nerveous about changing their browser setting, afraid they’ll break the thing. Unfortunately they are the ones who most need to crank up fonts.

    A nice “large type version” would both allow the designer some measure of control over how his text resizes (or at least remove the surprise?) and make less-tech-savvy folks feel more comfortable about changing the fonts.

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