Yes, please, I'm sad every time my 55+ year old eyes can't decipher something. Especially when I'm hands-free riding my bike on a sunny day.
Please stop disabling zoom
11–20 of 309 posts
Re: Please stop disabling zoom
#12It’s not just accessibility. I’ve last track of the number of times I’ve seen a mobile website with a table that extends past the right side of the viewport and zoom disabled. You can’t scroll, and you can’t zoom, so you can’t read the table.
What mobile browser? On iOS Safari, all the example websites mentioned by the OP allowed me to zoom. I guess Safari doesn’t allow zoom to be disabled by websites? Maybe all browsers should work this way?
It says so in the article
Re: Please stop disabling zoom
#13It’s not just accessibility. I’ve last track of the number of times I’ve seen a mobile website with a table that extends past the right side of the viewport and zoom disabled. You can’t scroll, and you can’t zoom, so you can’t read the table.
Unfortunately people see accessibility as a burden that a small minority puts on the rest of us, but really it is something that benefits everyone.
For instance, normally sighted people or even people with "normal" nearsightedness, farsightedness, or presbyopia benefit from adequate contrast.
Text "size" is another thing because people should be able to control it, particularly given the wide range of different devices that are out there.
Re: Please stop disabling zoom
#14But then the website might not look like the designer's glistening perfect vision, that only ever worked properly in their browser on their desktop in the first place.
The reason this is done is to get rid of extra latency when processing user input. I guess detecting zoom gestures needs some time to distinguish them from normal clicks?
Re: Please stop disabling zoom
#15Can we edit the title to be "Please, stop disabling zoom" so that it doesn't look like this is about the Zoom product
Good catch. Fixed!
Re: Please stop disabling zoom
#16Re: Please stop disabling zoom
#17Can we edit the title to be "Please, stop disabling zoom" so that it doesn't look like this is about the Zoom product
Would it be better to editorialize and say "Please, stop disabling pinch-to-zoom" instead? Or would that be too specific? I still thought it had to do with the Zoom product even with the case change.
Re: Please stop disabling zoom
#18It’s not just accessibility. I’ve last track of the number of times I’ve seen a mobile website with a table that extends past the right side of the viewport and zoom disabled. You can’t scroll, and you can’t zoom, so you can’t read the table.
I know exactly what you're talking about. A lot of times those tables are sized exactly for a horizontal view, so always try tilting your phone 90 degrees and it may work.
Re: Please stop disabling zoom
#19Looks like a user agent concern.
No. Sometimes it's good to disable zoom (e. g. in web apps that function as a big canvas, like Figma). Pages should use the feature correctly. People shouldn't have to fiddle with browser settings just because someone can't CSS properly.
I think this is where I have to point out that 50% of people who CSS are worse than average at CSS, depending upon exactly how you define "average". You're absolutely right: pages should use the feature correctly, but some won't (because of my previous point or, much less frequently, out of sheer stubbornness/malice/whatever), so I'm extremely glad that browsers offer a workaround via settings for situations where that's the case.
Re: Please stop disabling zoom
#20Yes! I have good eyesight but still frequently zoom for various reasons. The main one is small images and diagrams on responsive websites. Another is clicking small clustered links.
In the same vein, if you use images on your responsive website, consider linking to the full size version.