dw_suggestions | Increased font size on Tropospherical site scheme

Entry tags:

Increased font size on Tropospherical site scheme

Title:
Increased font size on Tropospherical site scheme

Area:
Site scheme (Tropospherical)

Summary:
At the moment, Tropo shows entry and comment text at 75% of browser default. This winds up being a bit on the small side, compared to other similar websites, which leads to squinting and headaches after lots of site-schemed page reading for people who don't usually experience these problems, particularly as Tropo Red is the 'default' people who are new to the site see. Increasing this a bit (I would suggest 0.85em) would increase readability

Description:
This came about as a result of some of the LJ-migration recently, where a number of people who are not usually photosensitive mentioned getting headaches after browsing on both Tropo Red and Tropo Purple for a while. I did some poking about in CSS, and discovered that the 0.75em size scales text down to a bit smaller than the size I usually see on blogs or LJ's old site schemes. It's basically in that range of 'just enough change to cause problems, not enough change to be immediately noticeable'.

I wrote a quick Stylish script to increase font size to 0.82em (along with a slightly smaller line height, but I think it's the font-size that's the core issue) and got feedback that yes, it was a lot more readable that way. 0.82em is kind of weird, and I'd probably just say round up 0.85em to be neat about it.

The problem with writing it as a Stylish script, though, is that any time someone is not at their home computer, it's back to site default (and I do realize that there are other site schemes, but most people I've talked to don't like the horizontal navigation of Celerity and find black-background even harder to read). Increasing the font-size just a bit should be a fairly easy fix (unless it's not in CSS styling? I haven't had a chance to poke through files), and it's not a big enough change to negatively affect users who didn't have the problem with the smaller font size while helping people who do.

Poll #9005 Increased font size on Tropospherical site scheme

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 81

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
33 (40.7%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
23 (28.4%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
8 (9.9%)

(I have no opinion)
17 (21.0%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

My with changes: Set it to 1em.

This is the (correct in my opinion) recommendation of W3C. They had a discussion two years ago when they redesigned their own site and decided to take their own advice which covers the pros and cons succinctly.

Yes, a lot of sites use .875 em which is a 14 px font assuming a user has 1em=16px, and no assumption about user preferences is ever safe. So if you switch to 1em, your site might look inconsistent with the web. Except the web isn't consistent and letting the user find their font size options if they care to make it smaller beats forcing them to find them if they have to make it bigger.

I also think concerns about pan-internet consistency are less and less important now that more and more sites are going for newer responive designs and giving up on trying to design the user's experience for them. Fonts set to 1em are more and more common.

(God, now I need an annoying responsive design crank icon to go with the tag on my journal.)

+1 Yes yes PLEASE. Set default view to 100% size; users can adjust their own settings from there.

+1

This is the primary reason that I don't use Tropo Red/Purple without an accompanying Stylish script. The font is just too small.

letting the user find their font size options if they care to make it smaller beats forcing them to find them if they have to make it bigger.

This.

Unfortunately, changing your settings for just one site isn't easy. I can't make my default font size smaller in Firefox without affecting every other site I view. It's asking users who want smaller font sizes to use Stylish, the same way the OP was protesting for users who want larger font sizes.

I would rather see it made .85, a compromise everyone can live with, than see the comms flooded again with users asking why Dreamwidth's font size is so big.

I mean, Dreamwidth USED to operate on 1em. I remember it! They changed to this for a reason.

I mean, Dreamwidth USED to operate on 1em. I remember it! They changed to this for a reason.
Are you sure? Because I can't remember Tropo being anything other than tiny, and I've been there almost from the very start.

I can't make my default font size smaller in Firefox without affecting every other site I view.
Firefox remember zoom levels on a per-site basis (unless you've disabled it). Unfortunately Firefox treats different subdomains as different sites, so you'd have to zoom on every new journal :/

For the first one: Yeah. I remember a lot of people complaining that the font was too big on the default themes and reading explanations from Dreamwidth about why it was so big. But maybe this is just for the journals and not for the site-wide schemes?

And I was talking about changing my default font size from 16px to 14px. But the zoom thing is similarly problematic, as you've noted.

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foxfirefey - 2012-01-06 23:00 (UTC) - Expand

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at_heart - 2012-01-06 23:02 (UTC) - Expand

I really think you're arguing from a place of false equivalency here.

I don't want every web site everywhere to use the web standards and stop artificially smallifying the font, I require it. I'm not getting what I need, when I use the Tropo site scheme.

But because it's become a design trend to make fonts smaller than the standard, users have developed an aesthetic expectation that smaller than the web standards suggest looks 'right' or is 'cool', or in really irritating terms, only sites for old foggies have 'big' font.

.85 is not a compromise I can live with, and I'm hard pressed to imagine how 1em would be something someone could not live with. I don't get the luxury of compromise here, I get to spend my web-surfing time control +ing and -ing as I go from my 1em journal to smallified sites and back to sites that follow the web standards. The more sites that follow the standard, the less of this crap I have to do. The less anyone has to do, because they can just set their own defaults to suit everywhere, or at least most everyhere.

So, I'm sorry, but I don't actually care about the irritation of people who want small fonts and complain loudly when they don't get them. And I know that sounds cranky, cuz it is, and that's why I linked to that discussion where people much nicer than I am hashed this out already.

Apologies for the teal deer, but I wanted to speak to the point in general as much as to you particular compromise argument.

No, I'm not. I know that people with accessibility problems have more severe problems than people with small font preferences. But I do like the idea of going for .85em, if that makes everybody happy, rather than swinging all the way over to 1em.

But I only say that because the OP said .82 was enough to solve the problems they'd encountered, not because I'm picking the number arbitrarily. You know? I didn't want to overcorrect the problem. And I didn't finish reading your response, so I didn't see that that wasn't enough for you. For that, I apologize.

But I have to say: There are also browser settings you can tweak to make sure you NEVER have to mess with font sizes again: in Firefox, for example, go to Tools-->Options-->Content-->Fonts & Colors-->Advanced.

There, you can set 16px as your minimum font size, and never have to swap around font sizes again.

Edited 2012-01-06 22:53 (UTC)

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momijizukamori - 2012-01-07 03:55 (UTC) - Expand

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at_heart - 2012-01-07 04:21 (UTC) - Expand

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momijizukamori - 2012-01-07 04:28 (UTC) - Expand

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arethinn - 2012-01-09 23:52 (UTC) - Expand

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marahmarie - 2012-01-13 04:54 (UTC) - Expand

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arethinn - 2012-01-13 06:25 (UTC) - Expand

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marahmarie - 2012-01-13 23:44 (UTC) - Expand

I'm okay with this with-changes :) I was mostly fiddling around and comparing off of the old LJ site scheme, which was well-liked, and I'll fully admit I'm not as well-versed in standards as I should be. If W3 recommends 1em, that's probably a good way to go. And I agreed that 'a little too large' is far, far preferable to 'a little too small'.

+1

This is part of why I don't use the Tropo site schemes.

+1

Now that I've almost gotten used to that enormous Arial over on LJ, Tropo looks too small.

But I also like the idea of making it a separate scheme, like Tropo Large, or making the site-scheme font size something we can individually customize (if that is even possible).

I'd switch that around, make it Tropo Small, Hot and Red as an option and set the default to 1em. Nothing wrong with offering options for people who prefer smaller sizes.

Hmm, thinking about the decision fatigue effect, I wonder if along down the line a Tropo Adjustable could be a thing -- pick your print size in a range from smallish to large (with the whole range tested to make sure that nothing breaks), pick the main color (it's a pretty limited color scheme, so pick the main color and then the rest could be calcuated), and maybe even pick your contrast level for the type vs. the background from a limited range (I like the not-quite-black and not-quite-white, but I know at least one person who needs high-contrast black on white or she gets eyestrain). And it would be set at a nice default.