[Sigia-l] width limits for a body of text

[diannes at dbfields.com]

On Wed, 20 Nov 2002, Boniface Lau wrote:
> My only assumption is that most users have customized their
> environments.

And that's a huge assumption indeed. 

Anecdotal evidence follows: There are multiple controls involved
in customizing browser display; some of them (in Windows) can
be altered under Control Panel/Display, others under the brower's
Preferences menu. Arguably the most accessible control is the one
for adjusting text size; in IE, this is under View/Text Size.

I recently was involved with a project that used a smallish 
(though common) font size for a screen that displayed a great 
deal of related information on one page. Because of the possibility 
that the small font would be a problem for some users, the font
size was specified in ems so that it could be resized by the 
users as necessary. Nonetheless, the site received dozens of 
complaints about the font size--some from otherwise technically-
sophisticated users--who had no idea it was ever possible to 
change the displayed size of text in a browser.

More anecdotal evidence and wild-assed guess follows: judging 
by all the users I've observed at their own workstations over 
the last 10 or so years, I can't think of any offhand that have
even done as much as change the default home page for their
browser. My best guess would be that fewer than 10% of all 
users have done anything to customize their browsers... were
actual quantitative data available, I wouldn't actually be
surprised to find out that fewer than 1% have done so.

JFWIW,

Dianne