25/08/05
123Is 1024 OK?
With all the hoo-hah over the launch of the new ALA, I read with interest the interview with Jason Santa Maria over at Malarkeys place. What strikes me about this redesign is that it has been so focussed on typography. Jason has spent a long time on the details, as well as the overall, and by god it shows.
Now, I’m going to have to be careful here, because Jason is a friend, but there was one thing in the interview that just didn’t sit right with me:
“We don’t support 800×600 anymore, nor do we 640×480. Do you? People flipped when sites stopped supporting 640×480… now no one says a word. Things change. Trust me, you are going to see more sites stretching out their legs and putting their feet up.”
As a designer (coming from a print design background) I’m with Jason. I would LOVE to think ‘to hell with 800×600’, and get that bigger canvas to work on. However, I also know that not everyone maximizes their window. They may have 1024, or much higher, but thats not to say that they don’t keep their browser windows at only 800px wide. For the record I have mine in a widescreen letterboxy format- full width, but leaving room so that I can see my Stattoo dock. Thats what its all about – everyone has their own preference.
What about future proofing? The ideal that’s touted when using web standards. Its always amusing to come across a site from the 90’s that was rigidly designed for 640×480. This tiny site sits up in the top left corner of the screen, with a large repeating background image (surely no ones going to see that?!) throughout the rest of the window. A fluid layout would mean that sites that we build have more chance of fitting the screens of tomorrow.
Now, I’m one of those people who’s gone for a ‘fixed 760px horizontally centred’ boring layout thats so common these days, but I’m Increasingly of the opinion that fluid – or at least fluid up to a point, is the way to go. I’ve been working on a fluid redesign for a while now – I just wish I had time to finish it!
This isn’t a post about fluid vs fixed though. Nor is it criticising Jason or anyone who decides to design for larger resolutions. Its about a dilemma I have – designer sensibilities vs user preference. Some may not see the two in opposition, and a lot of times they aren’t. However, I’d love to say ta-ta to 800×600, but a little nagging voice is telling me it isn’t that straightforward. Believe me, I’m not so far up my web-standards-arse that I wouldn’t just put up one big gif image for the page if I thought no one was looking.
Maybe I need to lighten up and not worry quite so much about pissing off ‘users’? ;o)
Tags: design, webstandards
Tim said 1079 days ago:
You are right on. I rarely maximize any application and the only time I maximize my browser (like now) is when I’ve got the Sage sidebar open, which means there still isn’t 1024 available.Tom said 1079 days ago:
You are defintely right on that point about people not having their windows maximized. I have it around 1024px in case sites like Big Noob come up.I also agree on your point about fluid layout being more flexible in this situation and the hell with 800×600 is hard to say at this point.
I also think though that I don’t think people would be too grumpy when most of us change to 1024×768 display size as default because I was never really bothered by those sites.
Andy Hume said 1079 days ago:
My initial thoughts were quite similar Jon.No support for 800×600, but also fixed width. What’s the thinking behind that?
I first opened ALA in Net News Wire. List of feeds on the left, and the main browser window coming up on the right. the browsing area wasn’t large enough to contain the full site, even though NNW was filling my high res screen.
As you say, what happened to fulfilling the users preferences?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure they talked long and hard over this issue, but I’m actually a little surprised at the outcome.
ichigo said 1079 days ago:
thanks for your posting. ive actually wondered about the ala move too.Egor Kloos said 1079 days ago:
I’ve been using max-with via a MOSe technique and forcing IE to go either 800 or 1024 wide. Depending on the type of client and their users.Mac users never really go ‘fullscreen’ because the OS doesn’t easily allow them to do that. PC users always seem have their browser window set to maximised. So setting a layout to 800 in IE and max-width’ing to 970 in a modern browser seems to make sense. Well to me anyway.
IE7 seems to be getting to grips with the usual selectors found in the MOSe technique and will also include the max-width rule. So start coding forward!
#wrapper { width: 780px; }
div[id=wrapper] { width: auto; max-width: 970px }
Paul D said 1079 days ago:
I do some writing for IGN FilmForce, and the parent company decided to go 1024-pixel layouts on all IGN properties a few months ago. I’m sure they studied the stats of their readership and found it wouldn’t be an issue.The fact that 1024 pixels give media web sites more room for ads is probably one advantage that will drive the switch.
I don’t have a problem with it—the few folks still running at 800×600 on their Windows 98 PCs aren’t an important audience for most of us. But as you point out, not all people keep their browser windows maximized. Mac users and those with cinema displays in particular don’t. My Safari window is often too small to show a 1024-pixel layout, and I don’t always feel like making the window bigger just to accommodate one site. Even when using my old iBook, I prefer not to have the browser window taking the whole desktop.
Stuart Frisby said 1079 days ago:
I’m going to be really dull and give the obvious answer. For ALA, sure, do it, and even my own site is 900 and something pixels wide, because I realize that the majority of my visitors are likely to be using 1024>For client sites, or sites where I’m approaching Joe Bloggs, straight out of the box computer user, not a chance would I abandon 8X6 at least until the next line of Operating Systems are established.
Paul D said 1079 days ago:
“Mac users never really go ‘fullscreen’ because the OS doesn’t easily allow them to do that.”That’s not exactly why. The reason is more because OS X is a true multi-document interface. Maximizing each window is inefficient and usually doesn’t make any sense. Windows-to-Mac switchers (usually) quickly lose the habit of maximizing everything to get work done.
Jason Santa Maria said 1079 days ago:
Don’t worry, I know exactly what you mean Jon! I still design 90% of client sites at 800×600 (unless otherwise directed).ALA was a prime opportunity to try something new(er). ALA will never be all things to all people, and it would be wrong to try and make it so. But this was a chance to shake things up a bit, and I am glad we did it.
Cleay Perham said 1079 days ago:
“Mac users never really go ‘fullscreen’ because the OS doesn’t easily allow them to do that.â€Little green button just to the right of the orange one – easy. Can’t remember the last time I used it tho.
Oly said 1079 days ago:
Also dont forget about new handheld methods of web browsing. The PSP (PlayStation Portable) will have a web browser and the device is expected to be hugely popular. Over time as more places get hotspots (trains etc) there will be loads of people hunting for decent websites that are developed for the 480×272 ratioAndy Hume said 1079 days ago:
_“Trust me, you are going to see more sites stretching out their legs and putting their feet up.â€_Probably true, but I think most would have a liquid/fluid design. As Jon said, the issue shouldn’t be about hardware – it should be about user preferences in my opinion.
Jon Hicks said 1079 days ago:
Jason – maybe thats the missing point here – Whats the target audience/market? I agree that its probably right for ALA, but not for all sites.Oly – Good point, I was going to mention PSP browsing, but left that bit out.
anthony said 1079 days ago:
Its gonna be a topic thats around for a long time. The internet appeals to pretty much every person in socity today, all of which will be using different equipment. Us designer types are quite likly to cope with 1024 designs, but the average joes mother might still be running that Pentium II at 800×600 for some years to come, especially as longhorn isn’t due for a while.Addtionally, mobile devices. We’ve got a huge range of mobile devices to cater for. Smartphones, very short width, 240px maybe. PDA’s, between 320px and 480px. Then other devices on the way, PSP? DS? Sky TV Browser? Internet Kiosks? All could be anywhere between 640px and 1024px.
How do we cater for them all?! – Simply, we cant. Personally I’d like to see something like screen resolutions dumped in the User Agent, so we can decide what “scheme” to pass back to the user, “small / medium / large”. It’s quite easy to maintain those 3 sizes using CSS, its just how we decide to serv thats the tricky part.
It’ll certainly be a challege for web designers for YEARS to come. :)
Oly said 1079 days ago:
When I was browsing on my PSP recently I visited k10k which had a nice solution. Ok I was missing a lot of the content from the main site but the most important element sat really well in the middle of the screen. You could apply the same logic to many other sites like this one, bbc news, weather sites etchere’s the link to the version you see when using a psp…
http://www.k10k.net/evilbrowser/index.asp
and the main site
http://www.k10k.net
Jason Santa Maria said 1079 days ago:
Jon – ALA’s audience is a radical mix of designers, coders, marketers, writers, and so forth. We wouldn’t have gone that large if 90% of our users could only support 800×600. Could you imagine the backlash we would have gotten if we went full fluid? From the comments (internet-wide) it seems like there are more people that hate fluid than those hate a larger fixed-width. Those are the same people who hate my site… bastards :DGerard McGarry said 1079 days ago:
Jon: My browser is my primary weapon – it gets full screen space at all times at 1600×1200. Accept no alternatives.When designing, though, I tend to work to the same 760px centered-on-screen technique. Still not sold on fluid layouts. Must make time to play…
alexander said 1079 days ago:
i must agree, i think 800×600 is still the way to go for web design/applications.Matt Wilcox said 1079 days ago:
As always the site width depends on your likley audience. My own redesign will be 1024 minimum – because it’s appropriate, but I would think hard before busting outside 760 for a corporate site. I think ALA made a good call, but I’d agree that fluid may have been a nicer call.Adrian Kostrubiak said 1079 days ago:
I’m going to have to agree with you on this. I think that it’s still to early to completely drop 800×600. I think that really the best way to go would be with a fluid layout, but it seems that fluid layouts are just so much more difficult than static layouts. Maybe that’s just me, and my not-that-great knowledge of CSS, but I think that the best way would be going fluid.Steven Garrity said 1079 days ago:
Preach on, brother! I think the new ALA design is great, but even on my new (enormous) display, I don’t run browsers at 1024-widths. The horizontal scroll bar eats away at a bit of my soul. Cheers.Marten Veldthuis said 1079 days ago:
I, as a visitor, don’t really care. I’m on a Mac and have my browser windows pretty small, currently this one is 660px wide. Being on a Powerbook with 2-fingered scrolling, I don’t quite mind if a site is wider than my window as long as the content isn’t. ALA’s main content width is a little less than 660px, and I actually quite like it that way. If I need to reach the sidebar, I’ll scroll to the right.Markus said 1079 days ago:
Yes, agreed. Hower, now that most lower end boxes are being shipping with new 800×600 flat panels, more ma and pa types are using the small screen because of the relative costs of panel vs tube.ichigo said 1079 days ago:
please dont go down the road with fluid designs!stay fixed.
to do a fluid design uses more time and more knowledge. more messing around and more frustration. you have to think about many things, and you lose some things that you could count on when you use a fixed layout.
you could use the time to do 2 (or maybe even 3) stylesheets for several screen sizes.
well i dont want to say you cant do fluid designs right…certainly there are ppl who get it right. but i very seldom come across such websites that get it right. PLEASE remember, that when you have a column with text in it…and you make it fluid…ppl with large screen resolutions and big browser windows will get much longer lines than others, and thats not pretty good usability and accessibility wise as its harder to read then
ichigo said 1079 days ago:
sorry for posting again but i just wanted to add…its not only harder to read..its also harder to comprehend. and thats very very very important in my opinion.please take a breathe and think about it for a minute. at least if you want that ppl really get (as much of) the information you provide.
Jeroen Mulder said 1079 days ago:
I wasn’t as much surprised by the decision to go for 1024 on the new ALA, as much as I was surprised by the information that would be out of the viewport when the design would be viewed on a 800 device.I think nowadays a 1024 design is doable for a site like ALA, but only when much-less critical information is positioned at the ‘blind’ right side of the screen on a 800 resolution. I tend to think elements such as search and the category links in the ALA design are somewhat crucial to a way a user (could) navigates a site. So, while I definitely think there’s room for 1024 designs, I’d still, personally and regardless of the audience, try to keep the core design/information fully visible for 800 users.
giz404 said 1079 days ago:
It would be great to do a fluid design with a max-width.Iit would be cool for users who surf in a small window and for those who use their navigators in fullscreen, so they don’t see a stretched-to-death ugly site.(sorry for my english, i am french)
François said 1079 days ago:
The natural conclusion to this discussion is IMHO in JSM’s comment: “We’ve designed ALA for ALA readers.”Try to display ALA in a 860-or-so bastard window, as I do: the only part you’ll miss will the right column, which you don’t really need to read articles.
Now the next question is: what should be the width of a main column? Unless larger screens mean more columns to you, that’s the point, and the problem is that a fluid design exposed in a maximized 1024 window can grow pretty large—too large in fact, for most eyes and readers.
Check out main columns on webdesign websites: they don’t go over… 640 pixels widths. It doesn’t sound like a screen tyranny any more, it’s an eye/retina one.
My 2¢.
sascha brossmann said 1079 days ago:
@ichigo: you seem to interpret ‘fluid design’ in a very narrow sense. nobody tells you to let your linewidth scale to the infinite, but as far as i remember there is more than one way to let text flow into a certain amount space. ;-)i agree that dynamic systems tend to require much more work than static structures. but then, think of nature: they tend do be stabler, longer lived, more adaptable, and much more rewarding.
sascha brossmann said 1079 days ago:
(sorry for double posting in case it shows up twice)i don’t think one should design for any particular screen width, height or whatever – seems pretty short sighted to me. adaptability in terms of fluid and scalable layouts, modularity, etc. holds much more promises. many designers still cling far too much to a print design paradigm – but the web is not print. rememeber that there is more to form than size & position in rows and columns, start thinking more about relationships and (system) behaviour, losen control, support more than one way of viewing, enable graceful degradation, … static architectures? thank you, i’d rather have organisms. ;-) admitted drawback: the latter require significantly more work.
Junap said 1079 days ago:
Personally, I run all my browsers at 1024 on both my 1680×1050 iMac and 1280×960 XP box. It’s a good size for me, allowing some nice clear space around smaller width sites, and capping line wrapping at a comfortable size on more fluid ones.I haven’t seen many 800-restricted users in my travels of recent years. Any off-the-shelf PC bought in the last few years ships with a 15 or 17” monitor that’ll happily support 1024. When down at that res, I automatically maximise everything anyway.
That said, I’d think twice before completely writing off 800-width sites, though their days are numbered IMHO.
ichigo said 1079 days ago:
@sascha:i would agree with you about the importance of scalability and the potential. but i am one of the “try to make the world a slightly better place” type and almost every fluid design has no max with for main text columns. but maybe i surf at the wrong places.
Dave Simon said 1079 days ago:
Jon –p. It all has to do with audience. ALA’s audience is a bunch of web designers (look at the tagline: for people who make websites.) Typically, we’re not browsing and working on 800×600. I haven’t since I got my first PowerMac 7100 in what, 1993.
p. I find it hard to believe very many people do browse at 800×600, but I’m sure some do. People like my father-in-law who doesn’t tweak the settings on his computer much and doesn’t mind icons as big as my fist because his sight isn’t great anymore.
p. But are there even any LCD screens made that go 800×600? Apple doesn’t make anything that goes smaller than 1024×768 (12” PowerBook.)
p. Should we be concerned about mobile users? Of course. That’s where the smaller screens are going to be for now. But perhaps there are other ways of handling that. Visit Cameron Moll’s series on mobile browsing.
Dave Simon said 1079 days ago:
Excuse my lack of mad Textile skillz.Jon Hicks said 1079 days ago:
“But are there even any LCD screens made that go 800×600? Apple doesn’t make anything that goes smaller than 1024×768 (12†PowerBook.)”Dave – thats the point though, its not just about actual screen resolution
sascha brossmann said 1079 days ago:
@ichigo: i have to admit that i have no suitable example at hand. still, it should be somehow possible to do something like dynamic multicolumn layouts. given the ‘great’ text flow control (i.e. the lack thereof) in plain html it won’t be exactly trivial, i fear. hmm, sounds like a nice challenge… ;-)[btw: am i the only one who gets some of his posts eaten by a black hole]
Jared Christensen said 1079 days ago:
I’d love to see a study done on exactly how different people use their on-screen real estate. It’s always seemed a bit unreliable to base website widths on screen resolution because such design decisions assume that the user has their browser maximized. And really—is that an assumation we should really be making? And what about bookmark/history sidebars? They cut into browser real estate as well. But I suppose we have to get a number from somewhere, and screen resolution is it, huh?Personally, as my screen resolution has increased over the years, my browser size hasn’t increased a great deal. I find that with more space to work on, my browser ends up staying a relatively consistent size and sharing the added space with other applications. Has anyone else experienced this?
Faruk AteÅŸ said 1079 days ago:
Jon,I’d say, to answer your question, that it’s probably more a question of Designer’s Preference. Is your target audience likely to have a browser width of 1024×768 or higher, or would plenty of them still have an 800×600-width? Etc.
It’s a relatively unique situation for each site.
Sally Carson said 1079 days ago:
I’m the Senior Web Designer at Crutchfield. We recently launched a redesign with a fixed width (centered) 1024×768 design, so the entire right rail is hidden from 8×6 users. I’m not sure it was the right move, because even though we tend to have an “early-adopters” audience—most people are running modern browsers—we still have between 15-20% at 8×6! So, even the technically inclined have these smaller resolutions.I think it’s important to note that most users are accustomed to having to scroll vertically, and some content can be below the fold, but as I’ve seen in user testing, users are not accustomed to scrolling horizontally to see content, so if it’s off screen horizontally, most likely they just won’t realize it’s there. By the way, looking at our stats, we’ve seen a dramatic decrease in the performance of some of our links that are off screen for our 8×6 users, as much as a 50% drop in clicks in some cases.
Jeremy Flint said 1079 days ago:
As the number of LCDs surpasses the number of CRTs, it will be safer to go wider than 800, but I doubt it will ever be truly safe to go 1024 unless everyone is running 1280 or something.I am constantly suprised at how many people I find that run their browser with the sidebar open, So even if they are at 1024 and run fullscreen, they don’t have 1024 available.
I side mostly with Faruk’s comments. The best option is going to be based on the userbase of the site and what they are likely to be running.
I think most XP installs ship at 800×600 default.
Paul Boag said 1079 days ago:
This is an interesting one because its not just about width its about height too. We all focus on the extra real estate we have to the left and right (in the case of this site) but we need to remember that designing for 1024×768 also effects the position of the fold (not that we ever know this accurately). Whether we use fluid design or not the issue of where the fold kicks in is a universal constant. Its an issue I have been thinking about for a while now. Check out: http://www.boagworld.com/archives/2005/06/fearing_the_fol.htmlJosh Williams said 1079 days ago:
It comes down to your stats… If you know 98 percent of your audience is browsing with a larger resolution, it’s certainly the designers choice if they want to ditch 800×600.We ditched with the design of the actual Blinksale application. It runs about 900px wide, fixed. Now, we have gotten a couple gripes about this, but I know for a fact that less than 3 percent of our users are browsing on something smaller than 1028.
Would a fluid layout be better for Blinksale. Probably. But we choose not to concentrate on that with the first release. We may make that adjustment in the future.
sascha brossmann said 1079 days ago:
@jared: for me, as well, the increased screen real estate seems mostly to result in more space around the browser for sidebar, desktop, and such. though, as many layouts tend to favour expansion in the vertical and not the more dominant horizontal of the screen, my browser is mostly running at full or nearly full height (one window w/ tabs).ichigo said 1079 days ago:
@jared:when i reflect on my own usage of browsers then i have to say…yes indeed i do it the same as you. but that might be because im a mac guy. i think its true that many non mac users do tend to go fullscreen with their app windows. but even in the win world there are ppl who have their instant messaging app sharing the space with their browser window…i noticed that recently when i watched my brother and two friends of mine using their pcs
so well the question really is … how much of their screen size are ppl using for browsing?... and i am almost certain that over time…when screens become bigger and bigger and bigger…there wont be full screen websites anymore…i think we are close to the point where its not really a good idea to use the whole screensize (usability wise)
James Nash said 1079 days ago:
Just wanted to Anthony’s comment (#14): Don’t forget that you can use the media attribute of link elements (or CSS’s @media) to supply different stylesheets for different mediums. Granted, it’s a bit of a blunt instrument but it’s better than nothing.I make a habit of always using media=”screen” for my sites rather than not specifying any media (and thus having the CSS apply to all media). That way, even if I don’t bother adding handheld stylesheets, mobile browsers will just see the unstyled page which is usually much better for small screens than a layout that assumes PC-sized browser windows.
Also, the W3C seems to be working on a standard to allow pages to specify which bits of them should be processed by a device depending on its capabilities (http://www.w3.org/TR/cselection/). Admittedly I don’t know much about this standard but it looks promising!
Kim Siever said 1079 days ago:
I maximise my browser at home, but I also have the Sage panel open and the Google Sidebar open. Even though it’s at 1024×768, the viewable space isn’t.I maximise my browser on my work PC, so 1024×768 would work well.
I do not maximise my browser on my work iMac. Whatever size the window opens at is the size I use.
Our site just underwent a redesign and we dropped the for-1024-width design.
Kim Siever said 1079 days ago:
“That way, even if I don’t bother adding handheld stylesheets, mobile browsers will just see the unstyled page which is usually much better for small screens than a layout that assumes PC-sized browser windows.”This technique does not apply to all mobile devices. Most PocketPCs running on Windows Mobile 2003 will read the screen style sheet if no handheld style sheet has not been declared.
Jared Christensen said 1079 days ago:
@ Faruk: Site stats currently only collect the resolution of a visitor’s screen, not the viewable area of the browser they’re using. Knowing that 100% of your users have 1280×1024 displays shouldn’t trick you into thinking that you can design a 1000px wide site. I guess what I’m saying is that site stats for screen resolution is not a reliable benchmark for design width (I run 1280×1024 at home and get a little bit angry every time a 900px+ site comes up because it forces me to maximize my browser).@ichigo: I feel like web designers’ perception of “typical computer use” is probably highly skewed because we are NOT typical computer users. We multitask, we have unique workflows, and we generally interact with the web in an entirely different way than (I assert) the majority of the internet users (though I find your observation of your brother and his friends to be a telling truth about computer use). All I have to base my understanding of how non-designers use their screen space is my wife. Is that enough?ot by a long shot. Our knowledge is very limited. It seems like a serious study is in order. I’d be really interested to read what such a survey would uncover!
Miko said 1079 days ago:
My university still uses Win 200 with 800×600. I was shocked…Phil Sherry said 1079 days ago:
Users ruin everything, damn them! Damn them all to hell!Jon Hicks said 1079 days ago:
Phil, you’ve put your finger on it exactly!!Arve said 1079 days ago:
If I’m not at work, my usual screen width is 176 pixels, so I would say “No”.If I am at work, or at another desktop computer, my normal screen width varies between 1280 and 1360 pixels, but that is by no means equivalent to my window width: My normal window width is somewhere in the 600-950 range, due to open sidebars and unmaximized windows.
I have always been a firm proponent of flexible designs.
Ian Brown said 1079 days ago:
This doesn’t affect me personally, as I run a higher desktop than that. But I can see where it would affect the users. Many people are on 800×600, it’s still the standard. Standards change over time, but not this much time. The majority of people are still on 800×600.I imagine that most ALA readers are on higher than 800×600, but the fact remains, this could isolate possible designers coming into the community, especially if they cannot be comfortable with their website viewing.
I personally love fluid layouts, and if I can, I’ll always create a fluid layout. My portfolio is, but most people dislike them as they don’t look as ‘flashy’ as things that stretch aren’t always that good. Shamefully.
Mayo said 1079 days ago:
What about readability? I’m pretty sure 1024 would not be a big of a problem nowadays, but I don’t think 1024 fixed design is the way to go, at least not the ALA way.I work with all OSX, Unix (X11), and Windows, and I can’t stand maximizing my windows, it’s so much faster to switch between the most used windows when you can just move few pixels and click, rather than alt-tabbing between then in the long lists. I keep my browser window around 1024 pixels wide, not because I couldn’t maximize it (aside from the point that I don’t like maximizing windows), but there is no point of having the window bigger …
It is much more harder (at least for me) to read very wide text, especially when the font is small (8 or 9 pt). I don’t mind small fonts, but when the line goes three quarters across the screen, you loose point of reference for the next line or when you need to quickly look somewhere else. Now it would be a different story, if the font size were to get bigger. I like the line width to font ratio on this site, as well as Niggle, which is much wider, but the font is bigger as well. I guess it all comes down to the good old 10-15 or so words per line.
Frederic Hemberger said 1079 days ago:
As almost everything, this everlasting resolution-discussion has two sides. As a designer, I think “Drop 800×600, give me space for some nice design”. Windows XP doesn’t run on an old 486, so from time to time you have to kick old habbits and leave them behind to proceed.Personally, I use all applications maximized at a resolution of 1200×960, so even browser sidebars are no problem for me (on a Mac, you might be used to non-maximized windows a bit more, I think).
On the other hand, guessing a user’s window size becomes more difficult for a web developer. Back in the days of 15-17” monitors things were quite easy: Because of the – relatively – low resolution, you could assume that windows are maximized, so a designer can work with a fixed width of 800 or 1024px. Nowadays, screens getting bigger, TFTs get cheaper: People don’t need to maximized windows anymore to view the full content of a website. And sidebars and additional toolbars (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.) become more and more popular.
So the best solution would be a fluid design, which adaps itself to whatever window size is used. But this is not always possible, for some layouts (and customer wishes) you have to rely on fixed-width elements. At this point, I don’t think that choosing 1024px is really a problem at all. One simple click maximizes the broswer window and the design in all it’s beautiful width can be enjoyed.
Web-designers will really have to bother about window resolutions when the market share of mobile internet devices increases. Then you have maybe a hundered different devices with certainly almost a hundred different display resolutions: Happy designing. ;)
As we all left the age of browser-switches some years ago, I hope we don’t stumble into device/resoulution-switches in the future.
_* fg*_
BTW: Found an interesting article on this topic:
Screen resolution 800×600 significantly decreased
http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_pressbox38.html
Rob... said 1079 days ago:
I can’t remember the last time that I maximised my browser window… or any other window come to that.Danny said 1079 days ago:
I think it is all about the audiance. ALA has no problem at 1024 because it’s target audiance is web designers. If you were designing a site for the elderly and the site didn’t fit an 800px resolution…well that would just be a bad idea.Conann said 1079 days ago:
I still get 17% 800×600 to my site and I am sure most people do, but ALA is a site for and by designers and most of them have big slick monitors with furry dice.Roger Johansson said 1079 days ago:
Is 1024 OK? In my opinion, no. Not unless the layout is fluid or elastic and adjusts to narrower windows.timmy said 1079 days ago:
Jeremy Boles wrote a good post about it a while ago.Even if I had a 23” Apple Cinema Display, I’d keep my browser window around 800px wide… there’s many applications that fully appreciate it now…
I’ll keep designing for 800×600 for a long long time…
Splash! said 1079 days ago:
I think that designing for 1024 is okay, but designing for lower res (liquid/elastic layout etc) is probably best. I keep my browser quite small (about the size of a 1024 window maximized, but a bit taller (small because I have a 1680×1050 20” widescreen), but I prefer it this way… I like lots of windows displayed at once.Deny said 1079 days ago:
If I’m being asked what kind of monitor resolution is best for web audience (specially in Indonesia), I’ll say 800×600. I don’t think design in 1024×768 will fit in many audience in Indonesia, since many of them still set their monitor to 800×600 resolution (not the browser set to 800×600).But, I’m pretty sure, if we design a web in 1024, and their browser/monitor set to 800×600, they will maximize the browser/scroll the page if they need the information on the page.
Sorry for my bad english :)
Robert Scriva said 1079 days ago:
At 1920×1200 i have loads of real estate to use ;)You could do like http://www.whirlpool.net.au and hide content based on the browser width… (not sure what browsers it works in though)
Miko said 1079 days ago:
Jello layout?Peter Asquith said 1079 days ago:
The subject of screen dimensions and fluid versus fixed layouts has been on my mind recently. As I’ve become more aware of accessibility issues and have learned more of the arts of typography and graphic design, I can’t help thinking we’re arriving at a meltdown between usability on the one hand and aesthetics on the other.There’s the complete accessibility argument that says we should provide content that is malleable; able to be read on a WAP-enabled phone through to a 30-inch cinema display; by screen readers, feed aggregators, games consoles and everything in between . We must cater for the user with their own stylesheets and allow them to alter their text sizes at will. Essentially we’re providing the content and a suggestion for the presentation but allowing the device/user to determine the final topology, typography and display media.
At the other end of the scale we work from tried and tested design principles: the judicious use of white space, beautiful imagery and typefaces, paying attention to line-spacing, leading, kerning and so on. We fix our type sizes and column widths to give the reader the most desirable reading experience. We want everything to be as we envisioned it should be. High art.
Somewhere between these is a compromise that must be struck. And having a distinct target market helps to determine just where that may be. The scary thing from an aesthetes point of view is that if your market is widely diverse then it seem that you must compromise your artistic sensibilities.
In short, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with ALA choosing a demographic in order to provide fewer design compromises.
Dan said 1079 days ago:
While Jason is right most people don’t say a word about the lack of designs for 640×480 he seems to forget one thing, most new computers (at least the ones I have used) have a minimum resolution of 800×600. The majority of users probably couldn’t experience the web at such a small size today. But I’m willing to bet there is a much larger web audience viewing sites at 800×600 than we want to admit.clint said 1079 days ago:
im glad you brought this up Jon, when I saw ala, first I was taking in the JSM design which really jumped out at me and next was the 1024. I applaud the move they made in that direction, and its been gaining slow momentum in sites for a bit now. I’m reminded of the dope Stylegala layout, and love how they went to the extra degree to offer up the narrow col version in addition to the 1024. Its nice to have an option. As noted numerous times above, I also surf with my window in the 900”ish” range, and being a mac user I’ve never been a fan of fullscreen windows, I still scream at flash sites that toss up that fullscreen pop up version of their flash mac firefox killer monstrocities.Rather than fight with a decision that was obviously an informed and bold one, I’d like to just go with ala flow and hop on for the next journey they are going on. ala takes me to fun places :)
tristan said 1079 days ago:
i put up a big printout of myself at my desk, and now i stay home in bed. no one has noticed yet.Steven Hambleton said 1079 days ago:
I’m not sure if it’s been mentioned already but why don’t you just click on the narrow link at the foot of the page… voila 800 width verified by the Firefox Web Developer Toolbar (This site is just over!)Steven Hambleton said 1079 days ago:
Ignore that, I thought we were talking about Style Gala!! I should get back to work :(Chris said 1079 days ago:
Coming back to the fluid design point, I think it has drawbacks too: – the design of a site cannot nicely adapt to whatever sizes of the window. As a designer you create a particular design with specific proportions and ratios between elements. When the window is resized that can lead to disproportionate relations between graphic elements. – The tags for instance cannot be fluid because lines would be too long and difficult to read. Putting a maximum width rule actually means you stop the fluidity of the design. – etc.Pere said 1078 days ago:
I think 800*600 to be the best option. For those ones who uses that resolution, for the other ones minimizing…Si said 1078 days ago:
Off-thread I know, but regardless of resolution or screen size, if you view the ALA site on IE on a Mac (I prefer FireFox, BTW) the top half of the site appears obscured by a huge grey block! Doesn’t that totally defeat acessibility? Since I’m trying to convert our agency to using CSS for our sites, I cited ALA as an invaluable resource to our new Web Developer (who uses a PC but tests things on a Mac platform also). He noticed the problem… now he’s questioning using CSS! Aaaaarrrgggghhhh!Si
Peter Holloway said 1078 days ago:
Fascinating discussion! I think this will become more of an issue as the variety of devices requesting pages increases. Perhaps the solution is to find a way for the browser to specify the available width of its window when it requests a page – that would allow for non maximised windows as well as other browsing devices to be served with an appropriately styled page.PS. With the browser window at ~800px and the horizontal scrollbar showing on the ALA site, scroll to the right and watch the horizontal lines at the top and bottom of the design.
Si said 1078 days ago:
P.S. Fluidity… I’m going to keep to 800×600 design for now… Fluid (expanding) designs usually seem to allow a column of text to expand to any length, making it difficult to read and help you lose your place if line lengths get too long! Tricky one… also, since my screen can easily accommodate a browser window with an 800×600 approach, I can have 2 windows open should I need it.Alexander Hahn said 1078 days ago:
Good points so far, but (yes the but is in the house) I think its not important. Important is, if the user is willed (wants to – excuse my english) to make his windows full screen to see the hole site, and this can be reached with good content.When your site has only the goal to show people something new and nice, it should stay in between the 800 and the 600 pixels.
in my opinion.
my site for example has all the important content in the 800px, but there is more on the right which could lead to horizontal scrolling for some useres… but hey, they won’t die! ; )
greetings from germany
alex
Damian said 1078 days ago:
“Mac users never really go ‘fullscreen’ because the OS doesn’t easily allow them to do that.”Good grief! You grab the little hatched area at the bottom right and pull it, mate.
Egor Kloos said 1078 days ago:
heheh i like causing a little stir: “Mac users never really go ‘fullscreen’ because the OS doesn’t easily allow them to do that.â€# Why? Well, in my user tests users, even the mac heads, don’t really like resizing windows by dragging the corners. Something to do with Fitts law.
# The plus and minus buttons don’t tend te feel reliable. It depends on it’s last large state and small state. Users tend to forget what these where. Thus leaving the window as is. The fact some app behave slightly differently doesn’t help. (the HIG leaves a little room for manouvering)
# Most users are ‘default users’ which in turn means they don’t often multitask or have many app open.
# If you’re not a default user you may have the dock on the side, for whatever reason. Maybe because you’re mad or need / want the extra height . Not everybody uses a computer mainly for browsing (they would go into the ‘Nobby no mates’ category)
As for PC users the default position for a window is maximised. Although some research and testing should go into how often sidebars are used with 1024 screens. I find them usefull on larger screens but I can’t imagine giving up real estate on smaller screens.
Jon, nice topic. It keeps me from doing my job :)
Jens Meiert said 1078 days ago:
“Is 1024 OK?”Only if just a very small part of the site audience uses smaller resolutions (around 1-3%, probably). For large commercial sites, the answer definitely is “no”, if I still may recite TheCounter.com July statistics measuring 24% (!) 800×600 resolution users. Most broader audience sites will still encounter a minimum of 10% of such users.
Two other things: Consider the frustration caused by too large layouts, really. And one should not make the mistake to compare resolutions with browsers – a user might change his browser once he makes the frustrating experience of more and more sites not working properly, but buying a new monitor is just another sports.
Of course, liquid layouts are a solution. Not only do they “automatically” address resolution issues (er, assuming that you still take lower resolutions into account), they also have the huge advantage that they offer more content “above the fold” (now that’s a biggie).
Edoardo Galvagno said 1078 days ago:
Hi Jon —funny that I had a similar discussion just the other day showing the mockup of the home page of a new site.
I designed it with a 8×6 resolution in mind and I was asked why.
And I said that due to the audience of the site I already knew there was a good percentage of people not using more then 8×6.
It seems different for ALA: I bet everyone accessing it has a bigger display (unless he/she’s using a PSP, i should test with mine :-).
At the same time while I have a screen res of 1280×854 my safari windows usually avarage at 900px of width; and I agree with those noting that many users with a 1024 display make use of sidebar etc…
Finally: I’m not sure about fluid designs, I’ve seen just a small number of them very useful.
So I’ll probably stick with the 800 for a while too…
Katie said 1078 days ago:
From my expeience designing on the web, I almost often receive comments from clients regarding the screen size being “too big” if I were to design for a little more than the regular 800×600. Some institutions still have employees with their monitors set to the lowest seting – or maybe because these employees do not know how to set their browser resolutions.I still design for 800×600 resolution, but it would really be nice to have a much bigger canvas to work with.
Paul Lloyd said 1078 days ago:
Was watching a video download from SXSW 2005 last night and it seems ironinc that there you, Dave and Doug were talking about where the web may be in 10 years and most of your suggestions seem to make arguments for and against different screen resolutions obsolete.This is especially true as when, as others have mentioned, screen sizes going up is becoming less of an issue – screen sizes going down is where its at (not sure we should focus entirely on the PSP either seeing as every mobile device is a web browser these days).
Also, if I recall correctly, upcoming Windows Vista has a screen sizing element that means you can scale up individual windows independent of their resolution (if that makes sense), so I wonder if these arguments will matter even less in years to come?
I think the site that has cracked the resolution issue for me is Dan’s simplebits.com. Have it fixed if that’s your thing, or set it to fluid and make your browser 1500 pixels wide (if you can!). Increase the text size too, or view on your phone, print it… it just works whatever the scenario!
mark said 1078 days ago:
Im giving 800×600 2 more years, then its done. Then Im going all 1024. If your still using 800, im sorry.Satya said 1078 days ago:
lately i put secondary content in the right sidebar of my 1024 layout, much like back in the early days of 800×600. so 1024 is ok but i’m still against putting any element wider than 800.Jason Granger said 1078 days ago:
Most of my designs have been 700/800 pixels wide, but I’ve never designed for a 640×480. Anyone who has that screen size needs to blow up their monitor and by a 1024×1280 (or larger…).Jason Granger said 1078 days ago:
(sorry, misspelled my email address so no Gravatar showed up)David Bjorgen said 1078 days ago:
I personally prefer a gimmick similar to what John Serris has done on Phono Phunk . He has the option for either fixed width or fluid design, and a nice cookie to remember your preferences. It’s the best of both worlds.computerdude33 said 1078 days ago:
I switched to Mac, and I just have to have some windows maximized. Camino, NetNewsWire Lite & Mail are the big ones. I just find it easier to read stuff like that.James Adams said 1078 days ago:
I think it’s an interesting topic for sure. I think one of main reasons that this design dilemmma even exists or for that matter the fixed/fluid debate is because screen resolution is not a trackable stat. At least as far as I know. Unless users submit their resolutions for a survey or poll of sorts, there is really no way to determine what users have at their disposal. But for that matter, even the lucky owners of the Apple 30” cinema display probably don’t view Web sites with a maximized window.I’m personally a fan of the center 2/3 column fixed type site. I don’t like the way fluid sites “stretch out the content.” I realize it allows for better “across-the-board” usability but I fear the design is lost when elements appear further away from each other.
I digress though. The point here was to simply state that I think what really comes down to is knowing your audience. For example I do work for state government web sites. Most, if not all agencies that access the sites are working on both outdated software and hardware where it’s a definite must to provide designs that fit 800X600 resolution.
For now, the majority of home users, I’m guessing are using monitors ranging anywhere in size from 15-20” in size. But according to Jason’s remarks, the future will bring more sites streching their legs. But until mainstream users start surfing the web on their 42” Plasma televisions I just don’t see how much larger it could go. I’ve got a new Dell 21” widescreen monitor at work that has a resolution of 1650X1080 and I still make sure that every site I design fits the 8X6 mode.
Bottom line, I like the “idea” of desining big, but like everything there is a time and a place. And now is not the time nor place.
Last rant: I mean look at your hit reports. How many Windows 98 users are on there. I mean are people who are using a nearly 8 year old operating system really surfing the web with 30 inch cinema displays? Doubt it. Keep it in the mainstream for now if my vote.
Jason Granger said 1077 days ago:
Oh, by the way, you aren’t valid XHTML and CSS, Jon.Andinho said 1077 days ago:
and what about my tablet PC 768*1024 portrait as standard?Lowell Wood said 1077 days ago:
“Mac users never really go ‘fullscreen’ because the OS doesn’t easily allow them to do that.â€I just “switched” from a pc to a mac and the fullscreen problem was one of my two main problems with macs (the other was not having two buttons as the defualt, which it looks like they are starting to change, i hope, with the mighty mouse).
Paul D; The reason i love the ability to maximize windows is because i have add and it is hard enough to stay focused on a computer that you can do almost anything on, and when windows are visible in the background it is even more distracting.
As for the fluid v. fixed debate, i favor fixed because they tend to be more boxy and less graphically centered, because the graphics dont fit. I think there are somethings that fluidity in css design could do to aid fixed pixel designs.
John Serris said 1077 days ago:
Someone mentioned my site, Phono Phunk , above. I remember thinking about all the same issues when I redesigned. I think the solution I’m using right now works quite well. I default to fluid width, using a max-width of 1100px (on the content area) and min-width of 550px (on the body). It works in 640×480 and the line lengths are still readable in anything over 1200px.If you prefer fixed width, I provide a style switcher (for a fixed width of 725px). The style switch works on the fly with JS enabled or a round trip to the server with JS disabled. This needs cookies to work though.
The funny thing is that I learned a lot of the techniques I used by reading A List Apart! :)
Personally I browse maximised at 1280×1024, so I tend to prefer fixed width layouts unless the designer was smart enough to use max-width. I’m not sure if I agree with ALA’s fixed width size yet though.
Liquid/fluid is definitely much harder to create though and can cause some issues if you have images within your content that require a specific width.
Daniel said 1077 days ago:
What bugs me the most is when people have monitors that could easily run at 1024×768 – or even bigger – but are sitting on the default size of 800×600 because the people who use them don’t realize they can change the resolution. So everything is enormous – it’s maddening.Lowell Wood said 1077 days ago:
John Serris I absolutely love the style of your site. probably one of my favorites right now.Jay Pettitt said 1076 days ago:
A List Apart is for people who make websites. It’s probably fair to assume people like that might have big (compensatory?) monitors. In Elsewhereland 800×600 is still pretty common. Plenty of people with those really cheap 17” blurry monitors or without super sharp 21 year old eye-sight are going to find 1024×768 bordering on unreadable. I’d guess that lot account for a fairly big chunk of demographic, so I’ll be making websites for them; quite often using a liquid/fluid design — damn you internet explorer and your many percentage width related bugs >:(Even when bigger monitors become the norm on desktops, small screens on hand held devices, kiosks and internet enabled fridges are going to end up being increasingly pervasive. A web designer’s lot is never an easy one.
Daz said 1075 days ago:
I cant stand using a monitor below 1024, it does my head in….i’ve got mine set to 1280 so…Oh and john, emailed you about a small bug i found on site :)
Mike Piontek said 1075 days ago:
Even at home on my 1280×960 display, my browser is rarely more than 850 pixels or so wide. Only a handful of sites I ever visit are wider than that, which means I have more screen space for other things. I keep my FTP client on the left so I can drag files to it from anywhere. I keep my IM client on the right so I can see who’s online and if they’ve said anything to me that I need to respond to immediately. Right next to my browser is usually a text editor window so I can look at things side by side. And so on.On my laptop, 1024-pixel-wide sites are even more of a hassle. I’m not losing a bit of space for my text editor to peek though… I’m losing all of my leftover screen space to the browser. That’s just frustrating. Many many laptops are being sold right now with screens that are only 1024 pixels wide. If people want their browser to take up the full screen, that’s fine. But I’m not comfortable demanding that from them, and I sure as hell don’t put up with someone demanding that of me.
The end result is that I just rarely bother going to sites that are 1024 pixels wide. I saw IGN mentioned above… I rarely go to the main site anymore unless I need to look up something specific. I don’t waste time idly looking around like I normally would. I find wide columns of text harder to read as well, so that doesn’t help keep me around either. ALA feels more laborious now.
Liquid layouts are great, but the poor support of min-width and max-width means I try to avoid them. I generally go with the 760 pixels centered approach, which I think works remarkably well. I do my best to create a design that isn’t just straight lines down the sides, something that will flow well into that empty space when the browser is expanded. I often have background elements that are wider than 800 pixels, so things don’t look too repetitive at 1024 or higher. Even if the content is fixed at 760 pixels, it can still look great at 1024.
Veracon said 1075 days ago:
—But then again, shouldn’t we also design for non-maximized 800×600?Darrel said 1075 days ago:
Yes, the new ‘our new ALAP site is so important that you must maximize your window and only pay attention to only us!’ concept is quite amatuerish for a site that has generally been well respected in the realm of things like user preferences, accessibility, usability, etc.What really gets me is that they could have still (arbitrarily and rudely) decided that they are, indeed, so important as to PREFER that I view it at such a large resolution AND still accomodated my preferences by simply not forcing a fixed-width design.
sigh
It’s akin to the crappy McMansion architect/developers concept: “hell, we have acres and acres so we might as well use up ever square inch with 3 car garages and yards of fenced, overwatered, chimically raized, manicured, private lawns with chainlink fences..
Ed Sharrer said 1075 days ago:
Why not let the user choose the width of the design?That’s what I did when I designed a website for the student newspaper at my employer, The University of Tulsa (US):
http://www.utulsa.edu/collegian
I let the user pick between two different fixed width content areas. Any columns within scale appropriately.
Acually, I’m telling the story backwards. I built the text-sizing tools first (no big whoop). But because I’m a bit anal and never have liked the fact that the large text setting results in uncomfortably few words per line, I decided to build the page width user controls. That way, users who prefer large text can also have a comfortable words-per-line ratio.
And before the comments come rolling in about the site…
Is the site design that great? No. Are there a few things I got wrong? Yes. Could you have done better? Probably. Did you get paid to build the site? No. :}
Josh said 1075 days ago:
Many older laptops, like my old clamshell iBook do not support resolutions larger than 800×600. It is not even an option for some people. That is why I stick to the smaller dimensions.Dat Nguyen said 1075 days ago:
For 1024px to be standard, 1280px width screens should first be the norm to accommodate sidebars and non-maximized windows. It’s one thing to drop support for older hardware, but it’s just annoying if horizontal scrollbars appear on very modern computers like the lastest 12” Powerbook and Dell 600m.There’s more than a handful of people on these machines that don’t maximize their windows and they are not going to change their browsing habits just for a select few sites.
Mike Piontek said 1075 days ago:
Veracon said “But then again, shouldn’t we also design for non-maximized 800×600?”If the design will work at a narrower width, then I make it narrower. There’s only so low you can go though, without having a significant impact on the design. Sure you could say the same for keeping it under 800 pixels, but I think it’s plenty to allow quite a bit of freedom.
Perhaps more importantly though: The number of people still at 640×480 is miniscule. 800×600 screens are still very common. I think it’s fair to say they’re most common among people who don’t do a lot of multitasking, or are at least resigned to the fact that things need to be full screen. In a few years perhaps the same will be true of 1024×768, but I don’t think we’re there quite yet. I’m sure I’ll move to 1024 layouts eventually, I just think it’s too soon. I’d much rather follow behind the technology than try to push people to upgrade their computers just for a web site.
Darrel said 1074 days ago:
Perhaps more importantly though: The number of people still at 640×480 is miniscule. 800×600 screens are still very common.Again, though…and this is the KEY issue…SCREEN RESOLUTION HAS LITTLE TO NOTHING TO DO WITH BROWSER VIEWPORT SIZE.
Screen resolution stats are simply red herrings. Toss them out. They are irrelevant for many reasons:
http://mnteractive.com/archive/alaps-new-more-important-design/
Darrel said 1074 days ago:
Oops. linkJustin said 1074 days ago:
Personally I don’t mind sites that are designed for a larger width than my browser window. I’ve found that the the stuff that gets cut off on the far right tends to be unimportant, like advertisements and calendar widgets.As long as designers keep that philosophy in mind, “important on the left, crap on the right,” I think we’ll all be good.
Lowell Wood said 1074 days ago:
Darrel; i dont see how monitor resolution has nothing to do with browser viewport size.As the size of a desktop screen’s resolution increases, a person is likely to have many more, but smaller, individual application windows
I disagree with this statement almost entirely. The vast majority of computer users use windows operating systems, where maximizing is a possibility, and maximize every window. I use a mac, where maximizing is not a possibility (my biggest beef with macs is the inability to maximize), and i still have my windows fill the entire screen.
And for everyone that says they like having windows surrounding their browser, you can never actually multitask. you can switch between apps alot, but you can never actually be using 3 apps at one time.
I am not a proponent of wider designs, i am just trying to make people think about their arguments and why this would truly not be a possibility.
Darrel said 1074 days ago:
“i dont see how monitor resolution has nothing to do with browser viewport size.”The only correlation is that the monitor resolution is a practical upper limit to the viewport size. Other than that, the monitor resolution tells you absolutely nothing about the end-user’s browser viewport size.
“I disagree with this statement almost entirely. The vast majority of computer users use windows operating systems, where maximizing is a possibility, and maximize every window.”
Well, disagree all you want, but what you are saying isn’t necessarily true (for every person that says what you do, there’s one that says the opposite), nor necessarily relevant, as the web should be about designing for all when it makes sense—not just arbitrary majorities.
Tony Bittan said 1073 days ago:
It’s started a debate hasn’t it? I’ve been thinking about and playing with fluid designs for a while, but while a lot of people talk about them, there’s not a lot of information about how to do them well. But there I am thinking about them, and then ALA reappears, and I think “oh, they’ve gone fluid..click…oh no, they haven’t”....alex Morris said 1073 days ago:
no-one seems to have pointed out that vast swathes of text/content tend to look like poop at larger sizes.hence why books/magazines aren’t printed at A2.
the usability of broadsheet newspapers has even been brought into question recently with smaller, easier to read versions going on sale alongside the larger, pain in the butt versions.
8×6 works nicely and gives you a very familiar “print” style experience even with nav left and right.
Justin Skolnick said 1073 days ago:
The Chicago Tribune goes wide:bq. “The home page is now 900 pixels wide, and is best viewed on monitors with a resolution of 1024 pixels or higher. This replaces the “white” space that used to appear on the right-hand side of browsers, and allows for the display of more news and photos and a wider range of advertising opportunities.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-ednote,0,4489035.story
Justin Skolnick said 1073 days ago:
And hicksdesign comments don’t do blockquotes, I see.Cliff Davidson said 1073 days ago:
YOU SAID:please dont go down the road with fluid designs!
stay fixed.
to do a fluid design uses more time and more knowledge. more messing around and more frustration. you have to think about many things, and you lose some things that you could count on when you use a fixed layout.
you could use the time to do 2 (or maybe even 3) stylesheets for several screen sizes.
I SAY
I disagree that you should stay away from fluid layouts and stick with fixed. It doesn’t take much time to do it. Not much longer anyway. You can see an example here (not the best design – but it was a redesign) and it works on mac and pc:
http://www.corbinpartners.com
with help found from:
http://leftjustified.net/site-in-an-hour/
Lowell Wood said 1073 days ago:
“you could use the time to do 2 (or maybe even 3) stylesheets for several screen sizes.”As Darrel said, the screen size often has little to do with the browser viewport size. And while i disagree with this statement, because i think a majority maximizes their browsers, you still have to respect the few that have their browser windows at 800×600.
If it was possible that you could fetch the size of the browser viewport when the visitor first visited your site, then i think the multiple stylesheet approach works well.
1024 Not New said 1073 days ago:
People talk like 1024 is something new on the web. ESPN.com has been doing it for years successfully – but what is key is that ESPN only put add’s etc beyond the 800 px mark. So no “relevant” information will be displayed (or potentially not seen) past the 800×600 standard window size.Also to note – it looks like theonion.com is now on a 1024 px redesign.
Mike Piontek said 1072 days ago:
Lowell Wood said “And for everyone that says they like having windows surrounding their browser, you can never actually multitask. you can switch between apps alot, but you can never actually be using 3 apps at one time.”This just isn’t true. I can be working in BBEdit and drag my document (using the icon in the title bar) over to Transmit, without bringing Transmit to the front. There you have it, I’m using two apps at once without switching between them.
And you don’t have to switch to an IM app to “use” it all the time. I can have it on the side of the screen and it’s telling me who’s online and what they’re saying without any interaction from me. People often make brief comments or split a long explanation into several messages. If I’m in the middle of something else, it’s a huge frustration and time-waster to be switching back and forth between apps for every message. But sometimes there’s an important message I need to respond to right away, so I have to if I don’t have room on the side for IM windows.
I could list plenty of other examples, but those are the two I use constantly. If I’m forced to make my browser full screen it would have a huge impact on the way I work, and how efficient it is.
Chris said 1071 days ago:
I’m with you guys! I have a 1280 screen but I keep my browser set to 150 pixels wide because I really, really like my background (it’s “Power” on WinXP). But I figured out a trick: just disable the CSS and it fits perfectly! Or better yet, write a user stylesheet that sets all page elements to display:block with max-widths of 150px, no margins, no borders, and no padding! Aren’t web standards great? Just imagine if this were all hard-coded with tables and spacer gifs and there was nothing we could do but sit around and complain about it.alex said 1070 days ago:
sorry Jon just a comment-testhurricane said 1069 days ago:
First off, I love the look of the new design and the attention to detail, but overall I don’t think it’s a good design. Simply because under normal circumstances it has a low useability quotient for me – normal circumstances is having my feedreader open, maximised to my laptop’s maximum 1024/768 resolution, and having the site load up in the right-hand viewpane when I click the more link. So I either have to scroll horizontally to see what’s hidden, or close the sidebar in my feedreader, or open up another (maximised) UA and renavigate to whichever article I want to read. None of those options are ideal, far from it.ivan said 1068 days ago:
Fluid layouts that scale between let’s say 800 to 1024 are the best. It’s like delivering customized layouts to every user instantly.Vincent Grouls said 1068 days ago:
Although I use it very rarely (i.e. when I do a quick trip away from home) I have an old clamshell iBook Indigo that has a maximum resolution of 800×600. It’s really annoying for me because I hate the bloody huge fonts plus some websites just don’t scale well thanks to fixed width layouts (i.e. line length gets too long).Although I’m not using it on my own site yet, elastic layouts seem the best solution. It takes a bit of fiddling to get font size/line length/column width right but the end result is marvellous imo.
I think the question of screen resolution falls in the same ballpark as the question of browser usage. Just because the majority of visitors use a certain specification doesn’t mean the rest should be left out. I do appreciate the standpoint/effort of the ALA design crew though; they ensured the most important elements were visible even if using 800×600.
PS: I think stats software writers should start considering measuring the width and height of the actual viewport as opposed to screen resolution.
Mike Purvis said 1068 days ago:
Well someone mentioned Jello, and that’s certainly the solution that I’ve been playing with recently. You get your min-width; you serve up a 95% width site to 800×600 users; wider resolutions get a wider site that still has some breathing room on the sides.A three-column example of this: tron09.com