Touch target size for small teams

It is rarely the thing that gets a project approved, and often the thing that decides how it goes. Most advice about touch target size assumes a team that does not exist at your size. Here is the version that does not.

Most of it is correctness rather than charity: use the right element and much of it happens automatically. Assume whoever inherits this will have half your context and none of your patience.

What to keep

Small targets cause mis-taps and frustration. It is worth being explicit about, because assumptions differ quietly. Write the reasoning down alongside the decision, because the reasoning is what changes first.

What to drop

Process that exists to coordinate ten people is overhead when there are two of you. That sounds obvious written down. It is still the thing most often skipped.

How to approach it

Spacing between targets matters as much as size. There is a version of this that is over-engineered, and it is worth avoiding. It is the sort of thing that looks like polish right up until it costs you an enquiry.

What this looks like day to day

Accessibility work almost always improves the experience for people who have no impairment at all. 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

Pick the one that would hurt most if it failed, and start there.