Please stop disabling zoom

#1

Post by zachflower » Thu, May 05, 2022, 2:42 PM UTC

Re: Please stop disabling zoom

#2

Post by amluto » Thu, May 05, 2022, 2:57 PM UTC

It’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.

Re: Please stop disabling zoom

#3

Post by renewiltord » Thu, May 05, 2022, 2:58 PM UTC

Looks like a user agent concern.

Re: Please stop disabling zoom

#4

Post by hallway_monitor » Thu, May 05, 2022, 3:01 PM UTC

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”

Re: Please stop disabling zoom

#5

Post by emteycz » Thu, May 05, 2022, 3:02 PM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #3

Looks 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.

Re: Please stop disabling zoom

#6

Post by falcolas » Thu, May 05, 2022, 3:02 PM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #3

Looks like a user agent concern.

Defaults matter. Always have. And if there's one thing everyone is guaranteed to lose as they age, it's eyesight.

Re: Please stop disabling zoom

#7

Post by chunkyks » Thu, May 05, 2022, 3:03 PM UTC

But 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.

Re: Please stop disabling zoom

#8

Post by electroly » Thu, May 05, 2022, 3:04 PM UTC

In the old days you needed to disable zoom in order to get click events immediately, rather than delayed a bit so it can tell whether it's really going to be a zoom operation. Is that still true?

Re: Please stop disabling zoom

#9

Post by Reason077 » Thu, May 05, 2022, 3:06 PM UTC

amluto wrote: post #2

It’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?

Re: Please stop disabling zoom

#10

Post by ivan888 » Thu, May 05, 2022, 3:07 PM UTC

Can we edit the title to be "Please, stop disabling zoom" so that it doesn't look like this is about the Zoom product