Day 120

Use fewer columns with large Dynamic Type

15 Sep 2022

If you are displaying something in two or more columns, you may want to change that to as little as one column when using some of the largest Dynamic Type settings to keep the text readable.

Two examples of the Weather app. The first one is using the Large (default) font. It displays information like UV Index, Susnet time, Wind or Rainfall in two columns. The second one is using the largest font size available and the UI switches to one column so there's more room for text and it can go side to side, making it much more readable than if it had just the space of half the screen for such large font sizes.

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If you have any web views in your app (Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, I'm looking at you), you can also support Dynamic Type for them. You can set an Apple system font with the same styles available for native development in your CSS.

For other UI elements that could also benefit from being scaled when using Dynamic Type, you can use UIFontMetrics's scaledValue(for:). Some good examples are progress bar components, which tend to be quite slim. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uifontmetrics/scaledvalue(for:)

Make sure you support Dynamic Type up to the largest text size available. Take into account that there are five extra accessibility sizes available from the Accessibility Settings. It can make a huge difference for lots of users.


Content © Daniel Devesa Derksen-Staats on Accessibility up to 11! is licensed under CC BY 4.0. License details