Hi folks,

Chiming in. Kyle asked

> The reference librarians frequently zoom in on our homepage during class instruction, and have noticed that after they zoom in a bit, our homepage switches from desktop to the mobile layout. Is there any easy way around this?  In other words, is it possible to fix the site so that, if a user is on a desktop/laptop, zooming in on the homepage will *not* flip the user over to the mobile layout?

This is actually the normal and expected behavior of responsive websites. Otherwise breaking this zoom would make the content less accessible, but perhaps a workaround would be to add a font size toggle in the header of the website where users can increase or decrease just the font size. Since I read you were using jQuery, check out this code that does what I described really neatly: http://codepen.io/ianfarb/pen/sxbvk .

When people zoom in (e.g., CTRL+), they aren't actually *zooming in* insomuch as making the viewport smaller. The viewport is the keystone to the media query magic that makes websites responsive. When it is smaller, like for your phone, then it presents a different layout.

Anyway, I really wanted to comment to warn against making changes like this to your website because of library-specific use cases - e.g., someone, staff or stakeholder, complains. These don't reflect the use cases of your patronbase. 

The reference librarians can change the default font size of their browsers. I would make them google that, rather than seek to break the zoom. For starters, here is how you go about it in Chrome. http://www.ehow.com/how_10035444_change-text-size-color-google.html

Good question!

Michael Schofield
www.libux.co / @schoeyfield / www.webforlibraries.com 

-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Katherine N. Deibel
Sent: Friday, February 5, 2016 2:43 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Responsive website question

This is actually a really good question as it gets into an interesting 
tension between responsiveness and accessibility. Zooming is often a 
useful means of addressing visual access issues, and one cannot presume 
that a user will have external or in-browser apps for magnification.

There is some literature on defining media queries using em/rem units 
instead of pixels, which would address some of the issues.
http://blog.cloudfour.com/the-ems-have-it-proportional-media-queries-ftw/
https://css-tricks.com/zooming-squishes/

I can't say for certain about this, however, as I haven't tested it yet. 
I have now added zooming vs responsiveness to my testing criteria.


Kate Deibel, PhD | Web Applications Specialist
Information Technology Services
University of Washington Libraries
http://staff.washington.edu/deibel

--

"When Thor shows up, it's always deus ex machina."

On 2/5/2016 10:40 AM, Kyle Breneman wrote:
> Happy Friday, everybody!
>
> Our library recently got a shiny new, responsive-esque website.
> <http://langsdale.ubalt.edu>  The reference librarians frequently zoom in
> on our homepage during class instruction, and have noticed that after they
> zoom in a bit, our homepage switches from desktop to the mobile layout.
>
> Is there any easy way around this?  In other words, is it possible to fix
> the site so that, if a user is on a desktop/laptop, zooming in on the
> homepage will *not* flip the user over to the mobile layout?
>
> Thanks for your help!
>
> Kyle
>