Shanklin Land 0

Make sites stop disabling pinch and zoom

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If you're one of the millions and millions of people with low or poor vision you're probably like many others who prefer web pages over apps on your mobile devices. And you've probably noticed a change on some sites while on your tablet/phone. Like the herky/jerky loading or the inability to pinch and zoom pages.


The latest craze in web design is "mobile first". What that means is they are going with what's called responsive web design which allows developers to design one site for all devices. The problem is they're putting devices first. Not people.

Devices comes with two accessibility aids: the device aid and the browser aid. The device aid is useful for the device but not really good at web page text and navigation. The browser pinch and zoom is perfect for web site navigation for people with vision problems.
These developers have decided that you don't need the browser one. They have determined that one size, the size they decide, is close enough.

There is no reason for them to disable pinch and zoom. Responsive web design works just fine with pinch and zoom. Sites like bbc.com, salon.com, montrealgazette.com have no problem by not disabling pinch and zoom.

And that's the thing. These developer have to disable it. They actually have to turn it off. For no reason.

Here's a list of just some of the people who have decided that one size is close enough:
LA Times latimes.com

Boston.com

Slate.com

Google+

Google News

Chicago Tribune

NY Times - has some partial pinch and zoom but only on some sections, others not at all.

History News Network - hnn.us

New York Daily News - nydailynews.com

Indie Wire - indiewire.com

Variety

Orlando Sentinel - orlandosentinel.com

The New Yorker - newyorker.com

Baltimore Sun - baltimoresun.com

yahoo.com

rollingstone.com

There are countless more that have decided they know what's best. It's time to make them stop deciding how we use our devices.

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