Getting started with touch target size
This is cheap to get right at the start and expensive to retrofit. A short on-ramp to touch target size for teams who have not touched it before.
The cost of retrofitting accessibility is several times the cost of building it in. Write the reasoning down alongside the decision, because the reasoning is what changes first.
Why this earns attention
Small targets cause mis-taps and frustration. In practice this is a scheduling problem more than a technical one. Budget a little time for it every quarter and it never becomes a project of its own.
Your first week
- Find out what is already in place
- Around 44px square is the usual minimum
- Change one thing and measure it
Spacing between targets matters as much as size. In practice this is a scheduling problem more than a technical one. Write the reasoning down alongside the decision, because the reasoning is what changes first.
The short version
Most of it is correctness rather than charity: use the right element and much of it happens automatically. Three things worth confirming about touch target size before you move on:
- Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
- Small targets cause mis-taps and frustration — and you know whether that is true here
- There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped
If you are not sure where your systems currently stand on this, it takes us about an hour to find out.