about site styling in re usability

[Felix Miata]

On 2012-12-06 20:51 (GMT-0500) Máirín Duffy composed:

> That one-line patch doesn't actually fix any of the problems Felix
> cited, nor is it really all that productive. There are probably 10 or
> more apps that use fedora.css that would be negatively impacted by that
> change,

Clearly that one line change would fall far short of enough, necessitating 
other changes down the cascade; but it's the foundation of fixing a huge 
problem that's hardly unique to fedoraproject.org.

>  and I don't think he understands why that line is in there.

Quite likely http://www.thenoodleincident.com/tutorials/typography/index.html 
from 2002 is the method's inception. I've been understanding the power CSS 
gives stylists to reduce web site usability since before I got broadband and 
installed Apache too long ago to remember, around the time the masses began 
discovering what the term blog meant.

It (body { font-size: 76%) "is in there" to reduce the site's base font size 
from the user's optimum size, as reflected in his browser's default size 
setting, a size the stylist has no power nor need to know, to a smaller size 
that:

1-crams more content into the viewport
2-reduces legibility <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/designmistakes.html>
3-reduces usability
4-reduces accessibility <http://fm.no-ip.com/Auth/accessibility.html>
5-says to all its users they've improperly set their default text sizes in 
their browsers
6-shrinks the site's base text size to 57.76% of optimum 
<http://fm.no-ip.com/Auth/area76.html>
7-induces users to apply defensive measures to compensate for small text, 
such as minimum size enforcement, disabling site styles entirely, zooming, 
and suboptimizing display configuration 
<http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd464659%28v=vs.85%29.aspx>

Quite notable in that last URL is that in the Microsoft sample, only 39% of 
users of HDTV displays were using the native resolution of the display, 
instead using a lower resolution in order to make everything bigger. And it 
says nothing about people who don't use computers at all only because in 
their experience tiny everything makes them too hard to use.

Setting an overall base document text size at other than 100%/medium/1rem, 
however implemented, is offensive behavior, otherwise definable as rude. 
<http://fm.no-ip.com/Auth/rudeweb.html>

> A good primer on how to work with CSS is Eric Meyer's O'Reilly CSS book.

Meyer hosts the CSS-D wiki http://css-discuss.incutio.com/wiki/Main_Page and 
mailing list, for those who'd rather bootstrap the web to progress the web 
than buy a book. The oldest post I can find I made on that list is days short 
of 8 years old. Without having looked I would have sworn I was a subscriber 
since far earlier. http://webdesign-l.com/ is another I've been using about 
the same length of time.

On 2012-12-06 20:57 (GMT-0500) Máirín Duffy composed:

> you're going to have to treat them with a little more respect.

Respect cuts both ways. http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/SC/sc-mairduff1200.png clearly 
demonstrated serious disrespect for visitors to your blog. The current 
version http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/SC/sc-mairduff1200b.png shows you've since 
incorporated vastly more respect than you had previously. Your old style.css 
set body text size to 13px, 42.25% of the browser default on the system I'm 
composing this on, 29.34% of the default on the system those screenshots were 
taken on. Your new style.css moved from 13px on body to 87.5% on html and 
1rem on body, which translates to 76.56% of the browser default on both 
systems, a vast improvement, and far better than most sites, still rude, but 
less blatantly so.

The legibility improvement via size increase is noticeably offset by #444 
gray text, while the overall layout impression, like so many other sites that 
overrule font designers' optimal leading, is that of a middle schooler's 
double-spaced term paper. Then there are those tiny images with illegible 
what appears to be 13px text when viewed at their intrinsic size and much 
smaller as embedded in your page.

> Surely though, if you were as passionate as your language and repeated
> mailing list bludgeonings suggest, you'd take the time to actually learn
> how to do it and do it.

I do know how to use CSS, though when Ajax and scripting get involved I'm 
blocked by lack of knowledge and lack of interest. In part because I know of 
no project policy statement indicating my effort would not go for naught, for 
the time being at least I choose not to steal the time it would require from 
other commitments waiting on available time.

In my thread starter I asked "Is there a compelling reason Fedora can't be a 
leader in web site friendliness...?" Without a satisfactory answer to that, a 
statement that it should be, what it would mean to be, and a plan to get 
there, I can't justify stealing the time required to do CSS grunt work.
-- 
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

  Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/