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Yes it is silly. The article actually ends with some useful tips: As a user, you can force allow zooming: In Firefox find the settings, select “Accessibility”

Yes it is silly. The article actually ends with some useful tips: As a user, you can force allow zooming: In Firefox find the settings, select “Accessibility” and activate “Zoom on all website” In Chrome find the settings, select “Accessibility” and check “Force enable zoom”

kevincox 4y ago
Unfortunately this also disables it on sites where it makes sense. For example I have a simple tool to pick a random person or split people into groups https://playerone.kevincox.ca/ https://playerone.kevincox.ca/ Without zoom disabled 5 people putting their fingers on a screen looks a lot like a pinch gesture. Disabling the default event handlers only works some of the time. This is a common problem with the web, we can't have nice things because people use them poorly.
- pvorb 4y ago
  That tool is a gem! I didn't have many situations where I could have used this during the past two years, but things seem to become a little better now.
  - kevincox 4y ago
    Thanks for the kind words. The same for me, I used to use this at least weekly, but now I'm lucky if I open it in a month (although regular board games are coming back to my life). Pro tip: Double tap for a few more options.
- iggldiggl 4y ago
  Yep, exactly this. I have that setting enabled myself due to e.g. Blogspot inappropriately blocking zoom in its default mobile template — but on the other hand it does unfortunately mean that e.g. on openstreetmap.org I occasionally end up zooming the page instead of zooming the map…
- fold3 4y ago
  For whats it's worth, I'm trying to test the issue on your website with either chromium or Firefox on android 12 and it doesn't zoom.
- rchaud 4y ago
  At least the web offers a workaround. I've never been able to zoom on mobile apps.
- tomtom1337 4y ago
  This is a really creative website! Nice work!
tobyjsullivan 4y ago
I kind of wish the author had lead with this instead of burying it at the bottom. For whatever reach the article gets, this is the part that's going to offer value to readers (it seems unlikely this article will sway a significant number of web developers to change their habits).
- ascar 4y ago
  I dunno. This article is like a 2 minute read. Starting with a solution nobody asked for sounds like an unreasonable request, while I did like hearing about these options after realizing how big the problem is.
  - kwhitefoot 4y ago
    > Starting with a solution nobody asked for At least one person wanted it: me.
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  The goal isn't to help the readers though, it's to convince web developers to fix their websites. Anyone can find the secret override setting if they're motivated, but that's not a solution to the problem. I know web developers don't care, but they're still the ones that can actually solve the problem. It's possible that like many other abused web features, Google will eventually change the setting for this feature from "override website zoom settings" to "respect website preferences for zooming" with "off" as a default.
  - Johnny555 4y ago
    The goal isn't to help the readers though, it's to convince web developers to fix their websites. It seems like that battle is already lost, this isn't some default setting that they are just accepting, web developers are doing it because they think they have a good reason, some random blog post isn't going to change their minds.
    - jeroenhd 4y ago
dlandis 4y ago
Yup but it seems to me like the default behavior should be reversed. It should be accessible by default, and for the few special cases sites where zoom interferes with their functionality, then the setting could be toggle to disable it.
ibejoeb 4y ago
Would be nice to have a standard accessibility header that the client could send to request these kinds of things, like "always enable zoom." In lieu of that, maybe consider having an "accessibility options" cta on first interaction.
- account42 4y ago
  Additional headers on every request should only be considered if there really is no other option. For not disabling zoom the header does not even help because developers blindly copy pasting the <meta name="viewport" ...> line so that broken by default mobile browsers won't fuck up their responsive design are not going to handle that header. Like many accessibility issues, zoom is not something that only benefits a subset of the popultaion. The solution is to no disable zoom for anyone except the 0.01% of pages (only very specific web apps really) where zoom does not make any sense AND interferes with some other behavior (e.g. multi touch).

kevincox 4y ago

Unfortunately this also disables it on sites where it makes sense. For example I have a simple tool to pick a random person or split people into groups https://playerone.kevincox.ca/ https://playerone.kevincox.ca/ Without zoom disabled 5 people putting their fingers on a screen looks a lot like a pinch gesture. Disabling the default event handlers only works some of the time. This is a common problem with the web, we can't have nice things because people use them poorly.

pvorb 4y ago
That tool is a gem! I didn't have many situations where I could have used this during the past two years, but things seem to become a little better now.
- kevincox 4y ago
  Thanks for the kind words. The same for me, I used to use this at least weekly, but now I'm lucky if I open it in a month (although regular board games are coming back to my life). Pro tip: Double tap for a few more options.
iggldiggl 4y ago
Yep, exactly this. I have that setting enabled myself due to e.g. Blogspot inappropriately blocking zoom in its default mobile template — but on the other hand it does unfortunately mean that e.g. on openstreetmap.org I occasionally end up zooming the page instead of zooming the map…
fold3 4y ago
For whats it's worth, I'm trying to test the issue on your website with either chromium or Firefox on android 12 and it doesn't zoom.
rchaud 4y ago
At least the web offers a workaround. I've never been able to zoom on mobile apps.
tomtom1337 4y ago
This is a really creative website! Nice work!

tobyjsullivan 4y ago

I kind of wish the author had lead with this instead of burying it at the bottom. For whatever reach the article gets, this is the part that's going to offer value to readers (it seems unlikely this article will sway a significant number of web developers to change their habits).

ascar 4y ago
I dunno. This article is like a 2 minute read. Starting with a solution nobody asked for sounds like an unreasonable request, while I did like hearing about these options after realizing how big the problem is.
- kwhitefoot 4y ago
  > Starting with a solution nobody asked for At least one person wanted it: me.
jeroenhd 4y ago
The goal isn't to help the readers though, it's to convince web developers to fix their websites. Anyone can find the secret override setting if they're motivated, but that's not a solution to the problem. I know web developers don't care, but they're still the ones that can actually solve the problem. It's possible that like many other abused web features, Google will eventually change the setting for this feature from "override website zoom settings" to "respect website preferences for zooming" with "off" as a default.
- Johnny555 4y ago
  The goal isn't to help the readers though, it's to convince web developers to fix their websites. It seems like that battle is already lost, this isn't some default setting that they are just accepting, web developers are doing it because they think they have a good reason, some random blog post isn't going to change their minds.
  - jeroenhd 4y ago

dlandis 4y ago

Yup but it seems to me like the default behavior should be reversed. It should be accessible by default, and for the few special cases sites where zoom interferes with their functionality, then the setting could be toggle to disable it.

ibejoeb 4y ago

Would be nice to have a standard accessibility header that the client could send to request these kinds of things, like "always enable zoom." In lieu of that, maybe consider having an "accessibility options" cta on first interaction.

account42 4y ago
Additional headers on every request should only be considered if there really is no other option. For not disabling zoom the header does not even help because developers blindly copy pasting the <meta name="viewport" ...> line so that broken by default mobile browsers won't fuck up their responsive design are not going to handle that header. Like many accessibility issues, zoom is not something that only benefits a subset of the popultaion. The solution is to no disable zoom for anyone except the 0.01% of pages (only very specific web apps really) where zoom does not make any sense AND interferes with some other behavior (e.g. multi touch).