Ikiru Design

lindseywb (ASA)

Perhaps I’m the only one who has noticed. Perhaps others have noticed but decided to remain silent. Perhaps others who noticed weren’t silent, but spoke while I wasn’t paying attention. (To be fair, a few noticed and spoke up.)

Whatever the case may be, I have an announcement: “Zoom” is replacing “Increase Text Size” in most browsers. And though I confess to initial ambivalence, I’m increasingly certain this is a good thing.

If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, click on View and look for “Increase Text Size.” Can’t find it: congratulations you’re using IE7, Opera 9.5, or Firefox 3. (Safari still seems tied to text size.) If you can find it (or a similar), you’re looking at old technology.

Now, this will all be largely irrelevant to those who don’t spend hours tinkering with CSS, but this does has some important implications for us that do. Many web designers — I count myself among them — have gotten into the habit of sizing as many things as they can with ems.

Sizing with ems allows people who need bigger text to get it, without breaking your design. If your browser still has “Increase text size,” you can play with it on this page. You’ll notice that everything scales. (Well, almost everything. The divider won’t, more on that choice can be found here.) With the design I’m using, this is a relatively unimpressive feat, but it does demonstrate the point.

There are problem with designing with ems, primarily that images — barring some fancy footwork — won’t change like other elements. This is why zoom is much more useful than “Increase text size:” it scales images as wells. Further, this means that designers using ems are becoming, essentially, outdated. Using pxs or even pts will now (well really, when “Zoom” browsers completely replace “Increase Text Size” browsers) have the exact same efficacy as styling with ems.

And now, if your cared, you definitely know. And if you didn’t, you still know. Congratulations on learning something.