READING THE POSTS AT A2K

But, people can just change the size of the font on their screen, no? I have a button on my toolbar that says "size", with a small "A" and a large "A". If I click it, I get a range of options. Mine is usually set to "smallest", but if I click "largest" -- voila. Big.

Gonna test it now.

Ohhhhh, it didn't do it. Only the curvy line demarcating signature from text got big.

Hmm, maybe that's a coding issue. Personally, I much prefer smaller text. I find larger text yelly and obtrusive.

In IE5, in the toolbar, under View, there is an option for text size. However, it doesn't seem to do much.

Mainly, what I've found are two things - color and font size - which can make posts hard to read.

For colors, please don't use the green in the choice bar; it's very hard to read. See? If you want green, use the drop down menu. See? And, please don't use light blue from the bar as it's also tough to read. See? Cyan is also tough. See? As for font size, it's only the tiniest that's hard to read. The remedy for that is to click "quote" on the post in question, and you'll see that post in normal-sized font.

Yes, Boss, I know what you mean. My employer wants everything done in upper case, and his wife tells him that it is like shouting. However, there is a good point that many who come here, and especially older folks, can have difficulty in reading the posts--if, in addition, they lack the expertise to adjust their settings, they might just go away, which makes a loss for us all.[/color]

I think it's a balance thing. Would more people be turned off by big yelly text all the time? If we have some specific person who complains, I'd definitely be interested in accommodating that person somehow. But if a specific person has that problem, there are a zillion programs to help with that kind of thing (reading hard-to-read online text.) Many are free or can be bought by/ subsidized by the Department of Rehabilitation. I can get links, if desired.

Btw, I find red harder to read than black -- less contrast.

Jespah is right on using the quote box for reading microprint. Someone mentioned yesterday that if the color is difficult, just hightlight the text and it becomes readable. It works

See what I mean?

Yes, Soz, that would be a very helpful thing (posting the links), and what i had in mind for this thread. I'll reduce the size i use a little, but i'm still very much in favor of what Cobalt has suggested to me.[/color]

I think Setanta's talking about people with impaired eyesight reading "regular" text.

Here's a goodie -- free downloading:

http://www.biolink.bc.ca/softtxt.htm

I have worked a lot with vision impaired people, and they tend to find this kind of thing sweet but goofy. I mean, you certainly can do whatever you want with font (and I like the latest version better), but it ultimately doesn't do much. If there are some people who haven't yet found the resources, I'd rather direct them to the resources.

Another one:

http://www.magnifiers.org/links/

General resource site:

http://www.netserv.net.au/doonbank/access.html

More:

http://www.abilityhub.com/vision/lowvision.htm