Reading/Web/Accessibility for reading/dev/Cross language font size considerations

The following is a summary of T340848 where we investigate what types of adjustments we should make to font-size on a per-language basis. We draw on previous work done at the foundation as well as expert opinion.

Wikipedia's that change their default font-size

The following is a list of language wikipedia's that change the font-size of their content. The "computed font-size" refers to the final output size of a paragraph of content, with default browser settings, as an anonymous user.

Arabic

Computed font-size: 14px

Modification source: https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%A7%D9%88%D9%8A%D9%83%D9%8A:Vector.css#L-16

modification code:

.skin-vector-2022 .mw-body-content,
.skin-vector-legacy .vector-body {
    font-size: 1.0em;
}

For reasons unknown, maybe related to T312966 this font-size may have been modified at one point but has been set to 1em, which has no effect on the computed font-size.

Chinese

Computed font-size: 15.008px

Modification source: A gadget that's enabled by default for all users: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Gadget-large-font.css

modification code:

/* Enlarge font-size for zh fonts */
/* em -> rem per [[Special:PermaLink/65609687]] */
.skin-vector .mw-body-content {
    font-size: 0.938rem;
}

Japanese

Computed body font-size: 15.104px

Modification source: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Vector.css

Modification code:

/* enlarge font-size for ja fonts */
#bodyContent {
    font-size: 0.944em;
    font-size: calc(1em * 0.944);
}

Urdu

Computed font-size: 16.94px

Modification source: https://ur.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%85%DB%8C%DA%88%DB%8C%D8%A7%D9%88%DB%8C%DA%A9%DB%8C:Vector.css

Tibetan

Computed font-size: 17.5px

Modification source: https://bo.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Vector.css

Modification code:

body, textarea {
    font-size: 125%;
}