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My client told me my checkout button was too small - she was 62 and right
I had a 62-year-old lady call me out on my online booking system because she couldn't tap the 'pay now' button on her phone with her shaky hands. After that I made all my CTAs at least 48 pixels tall - has anyone else had to redo sizing for accessibility reasons?
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john_hunt214d ago
48 pixels is actually the minimum WCAG recommendation for touch targets, not just something made up based on one person's complaint. Accessibility guidelines have been around for years now, and they suggest buttons be at least 44 by 44 pixels to work for people with motor issues or larger fingers. That said, your 18pt minimum size might be overkill depending on the font. A 14 or 16pt body text with a clear contrast ratio usually works fine for most older users without making everything look like a children's book. The real trick is testing with actual users in different age groups, not just guessing from one case.
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My own site got a scolding from a 67-year-old regular back in 2019 who said our font looked like it was designed for ants. I bumped everything up to 18pt minimum and made all clickable targets at least 50 pixels after watching her struggle with a dropdown menu. Feels like the biggest group of users we ignore is exactly the people who actually pay for things.
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robinl9017d ago
Calm down a bit. One older lady struggled with your dropdown so you redesigned everything? That's a sample size of one person. My mom is 68 and she zooms in on EVERYTHING regardless of font size because she thinks small text is a conspiracy to hide info from her. Your 18pt minimum probably annoyed people who liked fitting more content on screen without scrolling forever. And those 50 pixel targets? Good luck fitting a menu with more than 3 options on a phone screen now. You might have fixed one complaint while breaking it for everyone else who was already fine.
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