zooming - Should users be able to zoom in a responsive webdesign?

When it comes to a responsive design: should users still be able to zoom in or out?

We are currently working on a responsive design and one of our testers found it awkward that he wasn't able to zoom in or out. When I check some responsive designs (such as Boston Globe, Polygon and Currys.co.uk), it's not possible to use pinch-to-zoom. Is it a convention that when a website is properly scaled, the ability to zoom in or out is disabled and does it still provide a good experience?

On one hand, I say that zoom abilities should be disabled, since if a user needs to zoom in or out, there's probably a different reason for it (text is too small, images aren't good) and the problem lies elsewhere (your RWD isn't properly formatted). On the other hand: to use zoom or not is a decision made by the user, it should not be forced by the designer. It's a standard capability and something that users are frequently using when viewing other websites that aren't properly formatted for that viewport.

Any ideas?

Answer

Yes, you should allow Zooming.

I have changed my mind on this from having worked on RWD projects in the past. Originally my opinion was 'people only used to zoom on mobiles because the site wasn't designed to work on a mobile, but that's not the case with a well designed RWD site' however I changed my opinion, partly from some user testing that was happening but also from the general principal of putting the user first.

You don't know why the user wants to zoom. It could be any number of reasons, as you have suggested:

• They want to view an image in more detail


• The are trying to select a word / paragraph to copy and use elsewhere so zoom in to get a closer view and make selection easier


• They want to read a particular area of content that is too small for them to view so zoom in to do so


• The resolution of different mobile devices is not standard, so just because it's a 4" screen doesn't mean the text is as clear on all 4" devices.

There is any number of reasons why they may want to, but if they do want to and can't then that's a worse User Experience than if they weren't bothered about zooming but accidentally do so.

Aside from some minor development work required to allow it there is very little overhead in adding that functionality in. (Don't forget that people can zoom any page they like if they're using a desktop browser).

Also, some responsive sites do allow zooming. http://smashingmagazine.com/ or http://clearleft.com/ being some of them.