Thanks for the responses Jason, all very well thought out.
While we both have valid points, one analogy to help underscore my point is to compare web pages to content on a printed page.
The creator of a printed page spends part of his/her time setting margins, indents, text wrap around content, etc, etc. as an integral part of the words and images on that page. That type of control works on the printed page since the paper is a static unmodifiable medium, but it doesn't work (at least it doesn't work well) with web pages.
In addition to different browsers, users use resolutions from vga to really high res and many crater (ppct does a pretty good job) when you make minor changes such as modifying the text size... go to
http://cnn.com using a mozilla based browser (firefox, seamonkey, etc) and press
a few times for sample. (Keep us old farts with failing eyesight in mind and do the same on your own pages as they render ;-)
Pages are everywhere with such strict text formatting that expanding the text size renders them inaccessible and I have a hunch that the page creators are oblivious to the problems which occur when visitors come and use settings and browsers different from those of the page author.
A long time ago (pre-internet) I ended up with some valuable education points which taught me to be aware of messages that existed in addition to the incoming words and images... i.e. who is the message aimed at, what is the writer's opinion of the reader and does the writer have any concerns about the reader? Subtle inadvertent messages... "Eat at Joe's on Tuesday" may carry the additional message "Don't Eat at Joe's on Wed through Mon" There's an amazing number of ads out there which seem to assume their customers are dumb as a stump when you look at the whole.
When I visit a site I need or want to visit and things are not readable or simply don't work, the message I receive is that that company doesn't want me there unless I am compliant to their expectations.
Conversely, when I visit a site using a PDA and that site allows the experience for PDA users, the company has sent me a strong, effective and positieve message that they look at things from the consumers' viewpoint and that goes much further than a "special sale" in the long term.
Jason, you are doing a great job here and have a clean accessible site for a broad range of machines, browsers and users.
My posts such as this and the previous one are made in the hope that when readers of these missives later visit a site that makes the visit unpleasant experience that they might take a moment to go beyond the tech issues of the problem(s) and perceive that they just received a clear subliminal message from the vendor, since there will normally be a clear connection between those subliminal messages and how the company will treat you as a client or customer down the line.
Thanks again for this great resource you provide,
Beverly Howard