User Style Sheets, Specified Colors, and Page Flexibility
Difficulty: Advanced
Category:
- Presentation
The end user always has ultimate control over what the page looks like. They can apply user style sheets to change font sizes, colors, layout, or any other property of the page. As much as possible, web pages should be designed to accommodate user customization. This means that the page has specified foreground and background colors for all elements. Each element need to be defined specifically due to the cascading nature of CSS, but at a minimum, the body element should have a foreground (color) and background (background-color) color specified in CSS. These colors must have sufficient contrast. This helps ensure that if the user overrides page colors, that each page element can be adequately overridden to remain readable. The page should also be designed so that page elements to not overlap or become invisible when text is increased or when the browser size is very small or very large. Bulletproof and flexible web design is an important aspect of usability and web accessibility.
