Do we still need bulletproof layouts?

1st Dec 2007

Am I alone in thinking that the new pagezoom feature that will accompany Firefox 3 is an unwelcome addition? Having used this zoom-everything feature in Internet Explorer 7 and Opera for a while now and I can safely say I hate the results. The problem is that, as you zoom in, the page quickly expands to unreadable proportions, you get a horizontal scrollbar, pixelated images and more often than not a page that is near impossible to navigate round, especially with just a keyboard. And what does this mean when it comes to producing bulletproof layouts?

Pagezoom makes bulletproof layouts a waste of time?

Ok, I'm maybe putting my neck on the line here, but I can't see the point of spending time and effort producing bulletproof layouts when the pagezoom feature will pretty much trample all over my hard work anyway? I realise that in today's media-heavy, content-rich, web world pagezoom solves a lot of problems, I'm just wondering where that will leave all the professional web designers who lovingly craft their bulletproof layouts? And even if there's the option to switch off the pagezoom capability I imagine it will come turned on by default to start with. Dark days ahead.