Google Gets Ready to Zoom
Posted at 6:32pm EST on 03/05/2009
Google recently filed a patent to add the ability to “zoom” on a webpage.
Here is the abstract from the patent filing,
Methods and apparatus, including computer program products, related to a cross-browser compliant web page zoom feature. A method includes receiving a web page with machine-readable instructions and a zoom factor for the web page; processing a document object model representation of the web page in accordance with the machine-readable instructions; and displaying the web page in a web browser according to the document object model representation. In that method, the processing includes modifying parameters pertaining to content in accordance with the zoom factor, if one or more scalable content parameters exist in the document object model representation, and modifying parameters pertaining to layout in accordance with the zoom factor, if one or more scalable layout parameters exist in the document object model representation.
This sounds largely like a huge usability factor, a factor that sounds really, really bad. Why would I want to allow Google to zoom in on a portion of the website after visiting? Shouldn’t it be my choice to do that?
This could, however, help make the Google Maps usability better, so there is the other side of the coin to this argument.
It’s time for Google to go zoom zoom zoom again!
