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valtron | 12 years ago

No, but I just checked a few of the sites we made and none break from ctrl+ (regarding this: I've never seen a non-tech person, i.e. 99% of traffic for the sites, use shortcuts in the first place); they also look consistent between _modern_ browsers; and how often do people load their own fonts? Is the designer responsible that a site becomes unusable under Wingdings? (Sorry for the strawman.)

That being said, when a designer says things like "move this button 3px to the left" they usually mean things like "move this button so its right edge aligns with the right edge of the content below, which got shifted because we added padding-right." So the original request gets implemented as what he _wants_ rather than what he asked for.

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chimeracoder|12 years ago

> Is the designer responsible that a site becomes unusable under Wingdings? (Sorry for the strawman.)

Rather than apologize for making a strawman, how about we not make one in the first place? Nobody's talking about dingbat fonts from the 90s - GP is talking about usability today.

> No, but I just checked a few of the sites we made and none break from ctrl+

I'm glad your team has thought ahead, but I can assure you that many have not.

I can't count the number of sites that I've seen that would be completely unusable for people reliant solely on mobile devices (used as primary computing devices in the developing world), for people who rely on screen readers (blind and otherwise disabled people exist too!) - I could go on and on.

The common rebuttal I hear to this is that "the average user doesn't care about this", and the website isn't designed for "edge cases", which always makes me cringe. The wheelchair ramp at your storefront may not be used by your "average" customer, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't have one, even if the law didn't require you to[0].

Amusingly, in many cases, the sites that are the best-suited for a range of devices (desktops, tablets, phones) and clients[1] are the ones that look like they stepped out of the late 1990s.

[0] http://www.adawheelchairramps.com/modular_ramps/ada_modular_...

[1] Take a minute and check if your site works in Lynx. If not, there's a very good chance your site is inaccessible to visually impaired people (yes, Lynx and similar browsers are still used by people with disabilities today!).