Make everything bigger, properly
Set the writing on a phone to a size you can read at arm’s length.
A phone leaves the factory with the writing at one size, chosen by a designer who has never met you. It is a starting position, the way a car seat has a starting position — and nobody drives off with the seat where the last person left it. The writing on a screen works the same way. On a phone the setting is under Display; on a computer look under Accessibility as well, because Windows and a Mac each split it differently.
Two separate controls, and most people find only the first. Text Size makes the words bigger. Display Zoom makes everything bigger — words, buttons and icons alike — as though the screen had been brought closer.
The ordinary slider has an end to it, and for some people that end is not far enough. A longer one is kept under Accessibility. The practice screen visits both, in that order.
Key points
- Find Text Size on a phone and set it by eye rather than by number
- Reach the longer slider under Accessibility, for when the ordinary one runs out before you do
- Scroll to a button that has been pushed off the bottom of a screen
What to remember
- On an iPhone, Text Size lives under Display & Brightness and applies everywhere at once. When its far end is still not enough, the longer slider is under Accessibility — and on every other make, those same two headings are where to look.
- Nothing is lost when the writing grows. There is more to scroll through, and the setting slides back at any time.
Try this
Before touching your own phone, open Lantern’s own Settings, go to Reading comfort and move the Text size slider. It changes this app and nothing else, so it is a genuinely safe place to find the size that suits you. Then set your phone to match.
Practice: Make everything bigger, properly. Your first lesson is free, with no account or card; the rest are part of a Lantern plan. Interactive lessons require JavaScript.