Sure it is: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/change-fonts-and-colors...
> So if user set say 14px as their preferred font size, it would be 19.6 px instead. That's just asshole design.
I don't see that as any different from saying "use 19.6px text unless the user specifically overrides it." Maybe the designer just likes big text! If a user doesn't, they can easily make it smaller.
If the designer wants to make text big, they should first set somewhere a specific value for its size, not go on to "you like your text this way? fuck you, i'll make it bigger than that!". There was no "px" or "pt" size setting anywhere higher in the DOM, so that's effectively what the author was saying to the readers.
> If a user doesn't, they can easily make it smaller.
The user already set their text preferences in browser settings. It's the designer that decided that they will make every user, who made that choice at some point, miserable.
The point that is being made in the article and by everyone here is that the keywords “monospace” and “sans-serif” allow the user to customise what they want it to mean, whereas specific font names like “Helvetica” don’t let the user choose to use their preferred sans-serif.
This approach is problematic when fonts are used significantly: as part of design direction, for example, where metrics matter; or on the large number of sites that use icon fonts—and so all your icon-only buttons are now meaningless gibberish.
[0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search/?q=change+fo...
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search/?q=style