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Please stop disabling zoom

matuzo.at

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Re: Please stop disabling zoom

#261

Post by ibejoeb »

hallway_monitor wrote: post #4

Yes it is silly. The article actually ends with some useful tips: As a user, you can force allow zooming: In Firefox find the settings, select “Accessibility” and activate “Zoom on all website” In Chrome find the settings, select “Accessibility” and check “Force enable zoom”

Would be nice to have a standard accessibility header that the client could send to request these kinds of things, like "always enable zoom."

In lieu of that, maybe consider having an "accessibility options" cta on first interaction.

Re: Please stop disabling zoom

#262

Post by warning26 »

lupire wrote: post #234
briandear wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When building new commercial buildings (in the US,) accessibility is a non-negotiable requirement. And for good reason. If an accessible version wasn’t feasible in software, then it’s likely the project should have been scrapped just as a commercial building would never be built without accessibility as part of the core design. There shouldn’t be an “accessible version,” accessibility should be the default. Accessibi…

But what counts as needing to be accessible? A staircase isn't accessible, but still allowed. The accessibility is in an alternate implementation provided for those who need it. A phone call is an accessible alternative to a website. US law says that the phone call must be offered at the same price as the website, for those who need it.

> A staircase isn't accessible, but still allowed. The accessibility is in an alternate implementation provided for those who need it.

Exactly this -- some things just aren't going to be for everyone. If we truly wanted to make buildings "accessible", all stairways, and even printed signage would have to be banned, as there exists someone who cannot benefit from it.

Re: Please stop disabling zoom

#263

Post by warning26 »

ryandrake wrote: post #75
warning26 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Depends on the individual case — I’ve seen entire projects get scrapped because it wouldn’t be feasible to make an “accessible” version. Some things just aren’t work for everyone and that’s okay.

Accessibility is like performance, and security, and portability: You don't create the product, and then "spoon a little security in" right before shipping. You build it from the start as secure, with security as a first-class goal, and gate features on whether or not they are secure. Same for accessibility. You don't try to take an existing inaccessible project and wave a magic accessibility wand around it late in t…

I would argue that "usable by everyone" is an unreasonable goal which tends to result in catering to the lowest common denominator.

For example, take buildings -- they typically have stairways, often as a fire escape route. However, stairways are not usable by everyone. Should we ensure that buildings have no stairways at all because there exist some people who can't use them?

To apply this analogy to web accessibility, consider WCAG 2.5.5 Target Size -- in order to pass, click targets must be 44px by 44px. Seems reasonable right? Try designing a desktop spreadsheet program with 44x44 click targets. It's basically impossible to do in a way that doesn't severely impair the design for people who can click smaller targets.

Re: Please stop disabling zoom

#264

Post by calvinmorrison »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #163
jandrese wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a fellow Firefox user this is not my experience at all. Most stuff works fine once I allow the necessary subset in uMatrix. Some things are a pain in the ass, like embedded video widgets that need to load in dozens of scripts from all over the web before they'll finally get to the actual video frames, but I can pretty much always get stuff to work. One tip: Don't try to install too many general filtering extension…

Same here..I don't even have another browser installed on my main machine. Never have the need for it, FF works great. I think the OP has too many plugins :)

now some apps grab keys from the browser like "control-F" won't give me a native search modal dialog - instead providing their own search widget. Things like this break experience of the web for me. Combine that with tridactyl which i prefer to use to navigate around and it's even worse.

My addon list isnt that big either... it's just that I disable a lot of things as well, like webGL and other stuff. Suprising number of sites needlessly use these things.

Re: Please stop disabling zoom

#265

Post by bluGill »

dwheeler wrote: post #247
bluGill wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you know what the presentation is about from reading the slides then those are bad slides. Slides exist to support a presentation and should not make sense without someone explaining it. If you want to understand without attending a presentation then what you want is a paper, or book. Those are very different formats.

In many organizations this is bad advice. I've given many presentations where I has to provide the slides, which were then repeatedly emailed as samizdat. Easy 10x as many people only read the slides, but a document would not have reached them at all. It all depends on your audience.

Do not confuse documents written in power point with slides written in power point. Power point is a tool, it is often abused to write documents even though that isn't why the tool exists it does work. Many people prefer power point documents because it makes you think about bulleted lists which is what they want to see, but those are documents not slides.

Re: Please stop disabling zoom

#266

Post by detritus »

Ansil849 wrote: post #82
detritus wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't understand why someone would want to create something the way they want to, really? How much choice do you have in the typesetting of any book you've ever bought? You could still use a magnifying glass on your monitor, as some Russian General was photographed doing recently... . . Obviously I think the choice to disable zoom, etc, is daft, but ultimately that is the creator's right to call, advisedly or oth…

It is the creator's right to dictate the original presentation, but it is not the creator's right to dictate a user's behavior. Just like it is a filmmaker's right to set the default framerate and playback speed for a film, but you can rewind or fastforward, or play the film at X speed if you so wish in your media player. Disabling or otherwise inhibiting user behavior is not a creator's right.

Well, I don't believe it's not their right, but I am otherwise in agreement with you - it's daft to block such functionality.

Ultimately, that's the creator's mistake to make and it's incumbent upon the end-user to read the content as they can, if they must.

I'm not sure why people believe they have a right to dictate how someone else's content is created.

I guess I'm more talking about individuals here, not organisations, but I think the problem lies more in individual's websites.

Re: Please stop disabling zoom

#267

Post by jnovek »

Reason077 wrote: post #259
hedora wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being left handed is a mild version of this. I think it cultivates a healthy mindset though: At an early age, you learn that all assymetric tools were designed by idiots, so by kindergarten, you're already questioning everything. I suspect this is why lefties are drastically overrepresented in leadership positions, NASA, etc.

Apparently a Harvard study found that on average, lefties earn less, die younger, and are more prone to alcoholism! Source: https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2015/beyond-bls/left-versus-rig... According to the research, “lefties are generally born with a different brain structure that negatively affects their social and cognitive abilities.”

One could say that being left-handed a disability that requires a low level of support.

I really like this line of thinking because I think abled people are often overwhelmed by the prospect of disability. I bet left-handedness is the sort of impairment that people can get their head around as a starting point.

I’ve tried using my vision impairment (which requires a low to moderate level of support) to describe the same thing, but peoples’ eyes tend to glaze over as soon as I say “amblyopia”. :-P

Re: Please stop disabling zoom

#268

Post by pjerem »

agust wrote: post #147
pjerem wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You threw web apps and web sites in the same bucket. The problem is just that : websites are not apps and should be zoomed as you wish.

And what distinguish them exactly...? And why would disabling zooming be fine for one but not the other?

> And what distinguish them exactly...?

Web app = interactive application Website = readable content

If needed you may disable zooming in your web app because it could break your application’s user interaction.

You have no reason to disable zoom on any "content" page because the possible interactions are basically scrolling and clicking links.

Re: Please stop disabling zoom

#269

Post by cptskippy »

krapp wrote: post #253
barnabee wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can send whatever data they like but they have no right of control over what I do with it or how it’s rendered. Browsers would be better if they prioritised user preferences over website designers.

>Browsers would be better if they prioritised user preferences over website designers. The vast majority of users would prefer not to have to write an entire layout and stylesheet for each site they visit, nor would they consider having all sites conform to a single layout or style to be of any value. It's only very small minority of people (probably exclusive to HN) who would prefer the web was nothing more than JSO…

> The vast majority of users would prefer not to have to write an entire layout and stylesheet for each site they visit

This seems so obvious and yet so many technical people miss this entirely.

Most people most of the time just want a solution, they don't want the tools to solve their problem on their own terms.

Even if sites just spat out data sets in JSON, there'd still be someone bitching it wasn't in XML/CSV/whatever.

Re: Please stop disabling zoom

#270

Post by fold3 »

kevincox wrote: post #32
hallway_monitor wrote: post #4

Yes it is silly. The article actually ends with some useful tips: As a user, you can force allow zooming: In Firefox find the settings, select “Accessibility” and activate “Zoom on all website” In Chrome find the settings, select “Accessibility” and check “Force enable zoom”

Unfortunately this also disables it on sites where it makes sense. For example I have a simple tool to pick a random person or split people into groups https://playerone.kevincox.ca/ Without zoom disabled 5 people putting their fingers on a screen looks a lot like a pinch gesture. Disabling the default event handlers only works some of the time. This is a common problem with the web, we can't have nice things because…

For whats it's worth, I'm trying to test the issue on your website with either chromium or Firefox on android 12 and it doesn't zoom.
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