Level AA · WCAG 2.0
1.4.4 Resize Text
Text can be enlarged to 200% without loss of content or function.
Partly automated Some failures are detectable, others need judgement.
How it fails in practice
A navigation bar where enlarged labels overflow and get clipped by overflow: hidden. A price that disappears behind a fixed header at 200%.
How to fix it
Size text in relative units and let containers grow. Fixed pixel heights on anything containing text is where this breaks.
At a glance
- Level
- Level AA — the level EN 301 549 requires, and therefore the level the BFSG and the EAA are measured against.
- Principle
- Perceivable
- Guideline
- 1.4 Distinguishable
- Added in
- WCAG 2.0
- EN 301 549
- 9.1.4.4
- Automated check
- Partly automated
Partly automated
How far an automated check gets
A tool finds some failures here and cannot see the rest. A clean automated result means the checks that exist found nothing — not that the criterion is met. This is the gap that makes a green scan look like an accessible site, and it is where the keyboard agent, the agents still in development and a human reviewer do the remaining work.
Rules that check this criterion
meta-viewportZoom disabled
The rule ids are axe-core’s (version 4.14.0), the open-source engine our scan runs, and our keyboard agent’s — the names a report or a CI log will show. An underlined id has a page of its own here.
Where it matters most
The guides that list it among the criteria to check first.
Related criteria
Other criteria under the same guideline.
Further reading
-
meta-viewport
The axe rule meta-viewport flags user-scalable=no or a maximum-scale below 2, which stops people zooming on phones. The fix, with code example.
Find out which criteria your site fails
We scan up to 100 pages against WCAG 2.2 AA, send the keyboard agent through the page you name and email you the report — free, once, no strings.