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AMA: Brad Frost, Web Designer

7 years ago from Brad Frost, Brad Frost Web

  • Mattan IngramMattan Ingram, 7 years ago

    As far as I know this isn't as much of an issue anymore: https://benfrain.com/just-use-pixels/

    I think you have to manually change browser settings to recreate the old undesired text behavior when set in px. Every app that I look at that is set in pixels resizes just fine with user zoom settings across multiple devices and browsers.

    However ems and rems do give you benefits otherwise that still make them useful.

    2 points
    • Brad FrostBrad Frost, 7 years ago

      Thanks for this; glad to hear some of those issues have smoothed out. At this stage in the game, I'm so used to ems and rems that it would be a big mental shift to go back to pixels haha.

      Related: I thought this recent article on ems and rems was good.

      0 points
    • Weston Thayer, 7 years ago

      The comments in that article bring up that there's a user setting to scale only the text. For the history, read: https://mindtheshift.wordpress.com/2015/04/02/r-i-p-rem-viva-css-reference-pixel/

      Respecting a legacy setting just because it exists is dogmatic though. The accessibility scenario is simple. People with low vision need:

      • Things to be bigger (at a minimum, text)
      • No horizontal scrolling (it's very hard to read quickly while panning back and forth)

      Normal browser zoom + responsive design meet those requirements without issue. There's no need to support the large text settings as well.

      0 points