Wilson Miner’s first A List Apart article has been posted, just in time for me to cop all the ideas for use in my upcoming workshop on web typography in London.
Wilson’s been working on this for quite some time, and it shows. The topic — aligning text to a baseline grid — is something I’ve been working on a lot myself lately. It’s not quite as simple on the web as it ought to be, but Wilson shows you how it can be done with the minimal amount of pain. And the result — well, the result is just a much more professional-looking page. It really makes a big difference.
Wilson ends the article with a note on sizing text in pixels, which bring me to a slightly related topic. Did you know you can actually resize text set in pixels with IE6? Yup, you can. You can have turn on the “Ignore font sizes…” option in the accessibility dialog, but it can be done. This led me to wonder (again) how much responsibility should fall on users (especially those with unique needs) to learn their tools. In a comment on Roger’s site, I said this:
I have neck and back problems, myself. Because of that, I have to buy a decent chair and take the time to configure it for the optimal support. If I don’t, I’ll end up in pain when I’m reading a book at my desk. If I choose to sit in a crappy chair, or I choose not to configure my chair the way that is best for me, or I simply don’t learn how my chair works — whose fault is that? I’d say it’s my fault. You can maybe make an argument that it’s the chair manufacturer’s fault, because they didn’t make it easy enough for me to use my chair properly. But I don’t see any way in hell you can blame it on the book I’m reading. Do you?
Go read Wilson’s article. It’s really great.
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