CSS Zen Compost Heap

Something which I think has been in the functionality of every graphical browser that I've ever used, since 1993, is the ability for the reader to set a prefered font size. For those who are visually hampered in some way, and who need to crank up the font sizes by a couple of notches, this is an essential piece of functionality.

However, it appears that contributors to the almost self-proclaimed paragon of CSS usage, CSS Zen Garden have to various extents entirely forgotten about that essential bit of functionality. The results are far from the ultimate in beauty that the authors would like to pretend they are, and in some cases are an absolute disaster.

Note that CSS Zen Garden themselves warn about such sizing issues on their submission guidelines, and yet they went ahead and accepted each and every one of the below. That's a bar that's set very low indeed.

Since writing the above, I noticed that others who not only should know better, but are actually in a position of proselytising the usage of CSS, are highly negligent when it comes to the material they push.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a great believer in the usefulness of separating presentation from payload, and CSS is a very useful part of that. It's just a shame that it's also being used for the same level of visual masturbation that JavaScript was a decade ago. Often by mindless drones who robotically chant "semantic correctness" whilst demonstrating they haven't got a clue what the phrase means, they just want a site that looks k3Wl!

Can it be done correctly? Absolutely, if you follow a few simple sensible guidelines. Not only does Accessites.org cover all of the important issues, and more, but it also follows them almost perfectly.