The iPhone's Text Zoom

The iPhone's zoom feature is really easy to use. Just tap on the block of text you want to read, and it is enlarged. It works especially well for reading text that has been set in columns. The only problem here is that many sites do not support columnar text and, for the most part, columns pose great usability issues related to scrolling up and down. It's bad enough to have to scroll down to read online -- now you have to scroll up and down for each new column!

It is well-known that online readers "scan" text more than read. But the iPhone's zoom feature seems to encourage a new "hunt and zoom" style of reading. I wonder if reading comprehension is lessened as readers skip around, zooming in and out. Logically, you can't comprehend what you don't read in the first place! Zooming is fine for advertising, short quotes and photos, but not great for longer writings. Still, it's a very necessary feature since most websites are not optimized for mobile viewing. The iPhone's zoom feature at least allows you to read something which is more than what most other phones offer. Most websites just don't work on mobile phones, and the iPhone has provided a pretty good solution with its zoom feature.

I much prefer reading on sites that have optimized their viewport (screen width) and layout for the iPhone and other mobile devices. See picture on the right. There's no need to zoom, as the interface and text are already optimized for smaller screen sizes. To achieve this, publishers have to create a separate "mobile theme" to optimally display their content for mobile devices. We've tried to make lutegrass.com look good on the iPhone and most other mobile devices. When we detect that you are coming to our site on a mobile device, we switch to our mobile theme which is pared down and optimized for small screens, especially the iPhone.

Screen size, font choice, font size, font color, letter spacing, line height and background color all play a crucial role in online readability. Most online content is not designed with all of these factors in mind. You probably wouldn't even notice a major problem until you try to view your content on something other than a desktop computer. Let's face it, the future of reading is here and it's mobile. If you don't believe me, remember, books were once carved in stone!