September 25, 2005

Do you change your browser’s default font size?

At the risk of starting a font size holy war, I wanted to take a little survey about your browser’s default font size. The first thing I do whenever I update or download a new browser is go into the preferences and change the default font size from 16px to 14px. I don’t even think about it— it is a hard-wired behavior for me. I started thinking about whether this affects my view of the web world. I make sure my designs work at default font sizes, but after checking and verifying that things are acceptable that way, I am back to my world of smaller fonts, which are more comfortable for me. However, I realize that the way I’m viewing the web may not be the way most folks are. Most folks at my university, for example, use default sizes. So I wanted to ask you all, do you change your browser’s default font size? Why or why not? And no flames, please. If you didn’t know you could change your browsers default font size, you are as welcome here as everyone else, and please respond. Also, I don’t want to get into what font size we should use in our designs. That is a different question that is likely to lead us down a path that is too murky and controversial for this sunny Saturday.


Previous post
Flexible Equal-Height Boxes: CSS and Javascript Methods The new design of this site relies heavily on boxes of equal height. I did a lot of thinking about how to accomplish this, and a lot of playing
Next post
Did I mention that I used to study boobies? Well, now that I have your attention, I’m going to wow you with my full-on bio geekiness.* Some of you know that in a former life, I was a