101 UX Principles – 2nd edition - Second Edition

#70

If You Turn off Device Zoom with a Meta Tag, You’re Evil

Adding the following meta tag to the head of an HTML page will prevent the user from scaling the page, either using their browser controls or with “pinch-to-zoom” on a touchscreen device:

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, maximum-scale=1.0, user-scalable=no" />

Although rare, it’s still seen in the wild. Designers typically do this because:

• They haven’t made their designs work responsively or don’t know how to
• They don’t understand the implications for accessibility

The result is that this prevents users with vision difficulties from scaling the page.

Don’t be these designers. Let your users choose how to view and manipulate your interfaces. Away ...