pbhj's Journal: CSS font sizing and readability

OK, I received the email asking for comments about the walesontheweb.org site ... so here it is. The webmaster here at cymruarlein should also take note:

Accessibility of websites can be greatly enhanced by _proper_ use of cascading stylesheets. Neither of the above mentioned sites does that.

Walesontheweb appears for me as a tiny little portion in the upper left of my browser, the text is so small as to be almost unreadable - why? Because basic accessibility issues have not been addressed ... using relative font sizes (eg "em") as part of your stylesheet allow users to impose their own preferred size on the text viewed. This way a user can actually read the information on a site without eyestrain!

Additionally, textual areas can be allowed to flow to fill the available space. These sites appear to be "designed for 640x480" viewing. Most users now have 1024x800 and the availability of CSS in all major browsers means that designing for a particular screen size is no longer necessary.

Sites which have absolute size requirements such as artistic works may not be able to make full use of CSS. That doesn't include informational sites like this one though.

Find a monitor that can be set to 1600x1200. View this site with IE (still the most prevalent browser) with standard setting. Does it make best use of the browser "real estate"? I don't think so.

Now get your website designer to write a proper site that puts value on easily transmitting information to the populace.

References:
http://www.w3.org/2003/07/30-font-size
http://www.webreference.com/authoring/style/sheets/layout/advanced/step_11.html
http://www.mezzoblue.com/zengarden/resources/
http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/