Web sites should not implement text resizing widgets–you know, those little buttons, usually an “A+” and “A-” that increase/descrease the size of the text on the site. The responsibility for providing this functionality lies with the browser, like the forward and back buttons.
Web designers/owners need to put forth more effort in teaching/guiding the user to using the browsers’ features for text resizing. Equally, the browsers themselves should make this feature more obvious and usable.
In addition, most sites I see that use resizing widgets are not very accessible; they seem to add this feature as a cheap replacement (bluff, excuse) for a genuinely accessible web site.
More:
- Scrap text resize widgets and teach people how to resize text
- Text Resizing in Your Browser – A Visual Guide (video)
One reply on “Don’t Use Text Resizing Widgets”
Joe Dolson has recently written about this topic on his blog; see Developing an effective text-resizing widget. Although he provides great insight on actually developing resizing widgets, he also declares that “At the core, there can be no question that a text-resizing tool is unnecessary”.