##Why zoom can be important##

My parents are in their 70s and are sophisticated users for their age (mom plays video games!).

They have large mobile phones (mom has an iPhone 6 plus and dad has a Galaxy Note phablet).

Even then, they often need to zoom in to sites to read text or examine details.

Now, as a designer I'm faced with a choice.

• I could use ultra large fonts on my site to ensure maximal coverage for all user demographics including the elderly and sight challenged. But that may mean hurting the aesthetics of the site or severely limiting the amount of information I can just just to please a small minority of challenged users.

• I could just ignore the sight challenged and just design for the majority or "pareto" case.

• Or I could design for the vast majority of people and retain zoom (at the cost of some pinch gesture delay) to help the sight challenged.

I may choose to ignore the sight-challenged minority, use the "least-common-denominator" large font, or just allow zoom.

Very often, sites will choose the 3rd option as a reasoned tradeoff, but I'm just delivering information you can use to make the best educated decision for your own site.

Why zoom can be important

My parents are in their 70s and are sophisticated users for their age (mom plays video games!).

They have large mobile phones (mom has an iPhone 6 plus and dad has a Galaxy Note phablet).

Even then, they often need to zoom in to sites to read text or examine details.

Now, as a designer I'm faced with a choice.

• I could use ultra large fonts on my site to ensure maximal coverage for all user demographics including the elderly and sight challenged. But that may mean hurting the aesthetics of the site or severely limiting the amount of information I can just just to please a small minority of challenged users.

• I could just ignore the sight challenged and just design for the majority or "pareto" case.

• Or I could design for the vast majority of people and retain zoom (at the cost of some pinch gesture delay) to help the sight challenged.

I may choose to ignore the sight-challenged minority, use the "least-common-denominator" large font, or just allow zoom.

Very often, sites will choose the 3rd option as a reasoned tradeoff, but I'm just delivering information you can use to make the best educated decision for your own site.