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| | The Minding Your Own Business Network is not currently active and cannot accept new posts | | Opinions on page width. | Views: 1718 | | Sep 05, 2007 11:32 am | | Opinions on page width. | # | 
Eileen Brown | | Yeah, yeah, yeah - it is in articles and chats everywhere
and even if it is unfortunate I may be buying into it. I
need some opinions before diving further into web site
redesigns.
800 (ish) or 1024 width?
Anyone know the current stats on this?
I have already started redesigning some sites in the wider
format and suddenly did not know if I TRULY wanted to.
Opinions/comments?
Thanks in advance for your consideration of a reply.
Eileen :)
www.buddywebworks.com
www.rewardyourkid.com Private Reply to Eileen Brown | | Sep 05, 2007 4:30 pm | | re: Opinions on page width. | # | 
Reg Charie | | Eileen,
Why design in fixed widths?
Why not use a fluid design that accommodates the screen size that the visitor is using?
On one of my sites these are the stats I see for screen resolutions.
1024x768 40.47%
1280x1024 28.73%
1680x1050 9.25%
800x600 7.31%
1440x900 3.93%
1152x864 3.19%
And on another site:
1024x768 48.56%
1280x1024 26.33%
800x600 8.74%
1152x864 4.25%
1440x900 3.49%
1680x1050 3.17%
Reg
http://DotCom-Productions.com Private Reply to Reg Charie | | Sep 05, 2007 5:16 pm | | re: Opinions on page width. | # | 
steve solem | | The following stats are from www.thecounter.com
Sep 1 00:01:01 2007 - Wed Sep 5 12:58:01 2007 4.5 Days
1024x768 4247184 (50%)
1280x1024 2304219 (27%)
800x600 861591 (10%)
Unknown 696532 (8%)
1152x864 281662 (3%)
...and you can see that 800x600 is quickly losing ground to the higher resolutions as larger monitors become less expensive.
Personally, I've always tried to design for the "lowest common denominator" (800x600) and I still do with most of my work. Users with larger monitors can always view your site in a window, they don't HAVE to view it full width, and I find the challenge there is to use a nice background that's not totally obnoxious when viewed in their browser at full resolution.
As mentioned, more flexible and liquid designs are possible, but then you lose control over how your layout looks so I still prefer a fixed width. I think if you have lots of copy on a page a liquid layout can look ok, but if you have relatively short pages, what looks great at 800x600 will look rediculous at a much higher resolution.
HTH,
Steve Solem
www.ravedesigns.com
Private Reply to steve solem | | Sep 05, 2007 6:01 pm | | re: re: Opinions on page width. | # |
Reg Charie | | Steve,
While I do an occasional site in fixed width, I try to use a liquid design.
I have invested a lot of money into my displays and run a 4 monitor system. (3x 20" and 1x 19").
Now while I am not the usual user, it does annoy me when I see a site that is designed for a low resolution, as it forces me to scroll, in effect making me do extra work (scrolling) to see the content. Work that I would not have to do if the design fit my screen.
The basic premise behind building a site is to make it easy as possible for the user.
Even designing for a fixed resolution does not mean that the site will fit the browser properly. If designed in 1024 and the user is using 1024, and they open the site in a windowed browser, they are going to have to scroll in both directions.
Why try to dictate the size when it can be in whatever the user wishes?
Control is not lost, but it does take more effort to achieve a uniform design across a wide range of resolutions.
Reg
http://DotCom-Productions.com
Private Reply to Reg Charie | | Sep 05, 2007 6:42 pm | | re: re: re: Opinions on page width. | # | 
Laura Wheeler | | I DON'T design in flexible width most of the time because of the following reasons:
1. My clients cannot afford the extra time it takes to fuss making it look good all ways. That time can better be used on more critical function.
2. When fluid width pages go very wide, they look very stupid - things just don't stay arranged well. Same when they goo too narrow - stuff gets wrapped that shouldn't (or worse, overlapped!). So you end up with minimum and maximum widths, which is really just another way of doing fixed width, IF you can get it to work across browsers without IE doing something stupid to it.
3. If pages go very wide, the text gets extremely hard to read unless you change the size (and then you lose all that extra space to bigger text). Publishing rules dictate that anything more than the equivalent in text of 3 alphabet lengths should be avoided - and with good reason. It gets too hard to track from one line to the next.
Complete flexibility just isn't possible. There are too many variations. The down-side to having a huge monitor is that everybody else doesn't. So designers won't go out of their way for the few that do. My monitor is large - but I NEVER open the browser window full width. It bugs me if I do. There is just too much width to use effectively with a web page.
We designed for 800pixels until the last year. We widened it to either 900 or 1000. Those widths give us the ability to use more space, while being less of an inconvenience to the 800 pixel crowd (they just get the right sidebar cut off, and we reserve that for less critical info anyway). I don't use right hand sidebars with larger templates.
If you cater to frugal people, seniors, or other people who are likely to own an older computer, then you should keep the page width smaller, because your visitor stats could be quite different than the average.
Laura
Mom to Eight
Firelight Business Enterprises, Inc.
http://www.firelightwebstudio.com
http://www.westernhillsinstitute.com
Private Reply to Laura Wheeler | | Sep 05, 2007 7:32 pm | | re: re: re: re: Opinions on page width. | # |
Reg Charie | | Some interesting comments on fixed vs fluid sites at:
http://www.webproworld.com/graphics-design-discussion-forum/61006-fixed-variable-width-layouts.html
http://www.webproworld.com/graphics-design-discussion-forum/57865-any-opinions-resolution-design.html
Reg
http://DotCom-Productions.com Private Reply to Reg Charie | | Sep 05, 2007 8:32 pm | | re: re: re: re: re: Opinions on page width. | # |
Laura Wheeler | | I thought the blog referenced in there pretty much summed up my perspective:
http://www.dvhdesign.co.uk/blog/2007/06/why-ive-opted-for-fixed.html
We use some of the techniques she talks about for the sides, filling with something that enhances the message of the site whenever possible.
If something is faster to create (therefore, less expensive) and results in substantially equivalent quality and performance, we adopt it because we cannot justify the expense to our clients otherwise.
Setting up separate stylesheets is only an option if you have the budget to do it. My clients don't. My own sites are like the cobbler's kids - getting by on leftovers. I rarely have time to do anything except the most essential work on them, sometimes not even that. Some of our dynamic sites use a fluid or semi-fluid width layout, because we start with a template, but that often has to be constrained just to get it to work with the graphical elements the client wants.
It is really a matter of preference and time. If my clients chose to pay the additional time to build fluid-width sites, we'd do it. But they won't. So I don't.
Laura
Mom to Eight
Firelight Business Enterprises, Inc.
http://www.firelightwebstudio.com
http://www.westernhillsinstitute.comPrivate Reply to Laura Wheeler | | Sep 05, 2007 10:02 pm | | re: re: re: re: re: re: Opinions on page width. | # |
Eileen Brown | | First, thank you all for your well thought out and helpful
responses. I had seen some of the discussions before at
WPN. Laura - thanks for the blog link, very useful info.
As a copywriter I write text to the tune of 70
to 80 characters wide, only. re: readability. I am not
flexible on this particular issue. White space should
always be 3/4 to 1 1/2 inches around text. I am not
flexible on this either. But that is only the text. Text
should never be fluid. Just my OH-pinion and .02 worth
on text.
I have always designed with fixed width. Research shows
that people using the internet do not mind scrolling down
but pretty much hate scrolling sideways, thus the question
on width only.
My views on this have been covered as text is what is most
important, not to diminish the roll of graphics and images
but these should be fixed in their own places also, IMHO.
So, now that we are rolling along here is one example of
exactly what I am talking about. One old site, which
needed updated anyhousen and the newly designed
(re-worked for text also) site.
Old design:
http://www.buddywebworks.com
New proposed design:
http://www.buddywebworks.com/web_site_home
Other than the color schemes, does anyone here (uh, I am
sure NOT) have to scroll sideways? I view in ie, firefox,
and netscape. I used to do more but stopped when it
seemed there were never any issues. I sometimes do have
issues in firefox, but those are always solvable.
OH - I guess if I am posting the urls for this one site, I
could also ask for a true critique. OK, let me have it
I am a tough little cookie, I can take plenty of hits.
Since I have not designed in the wider width it is hard
for me to gauge how this looks. Many eyes help and all
suggesions are welcome.
Eileen ;)
Private Reply to Eileen Brown | | Sep 05, 2007 11:04 pm | | re: re: re: re: re: re: re: Opinions on page width. | # |
Laura Wheeler | | I like the new layout better. It is clearer, cleaner, and has better contrast for easy readability. I don't have time right now to do more than that or I'd dig around inside a bit. :)
Laura
Mom to Eight
Firelight Business Enterprises, Inc.
http://www.firelightwebstudio.com
http://www.westernhillsinstitute.comPrivate Reply to Laura Wheeler | | Sep 06, 2007 2:10 pm | | re: Opinions on page width. | # |
Eileen Brown | | Good Morning Laura and All,
I had no idea we would get into such a discussion on page
width. I just wanted to get some opinions so I could
settle my mind around the issue, for good.
Laura - thanks so much for taking a look. I have been
trying to get some eyeballs and suggestions on those two
pages for um... uh, this is the fourth group I have asked.
With no one posting until now. Thanks again.
No one seems to want to do that anymore as it can be time
consuming.
Have a great and blessed day.
Eileen
http://bekansas.com
http://buddycopywriting.comPrivate Reply to Eileen Brown | | Sep 06, 2007 3:24 pm | | re: re: Opinions on page width. | # |
Laura Wheeler | | Feedback on a website seems like such a simple thing on the surface. But if you are a pro, and you take a look, it means looking at each page, looking at the code, and then writing some conclusions. It does take some time.
And then probably a third or more is going to be purely subjective. I mean, web building isn't a formula that you plug in and it all magically works. There are a hundred right ways of doing it, thousands of wrong ones, and a huge area in between that is filled with personal opinion, preference, speculation, and misinformation.
And I think the hardest sites I do are my own. They are the most difficult to view objectively, the most difficult to be coherent with. :)
Laura
Mom to Eight
Firelight Business Enterprises, Inc.
http://www.firelightwebstudio.com
http://www.westernhillsinstitute.comPrivate Reply to Laura Wheeler | | Sep 06, 2007 5:37 pm | | re: re: re: Opinions on page width. | # |
Eileen Brown | | Thank you Laura,
I completely agree. It seems so easy to "do it all" for a
client but I struggle so much with my own sites. It took
me almost a year to get Buddy online as I just did not have
the time to work on it. Then, when I did get it online -
it does not have even a fraction of the information I need
to impart. Or, at least, THINK I need to impart. lol.
Eileen :)
Private Reply to Eileen Brown | | Sep 06, 2007 5:54 pm | | re: re: re: re: Opinions on page width. | # |
Laura Wheeler | | Ah... There is a huge key. What we think we need to tell them, compared with what they really want to know.
You know, most of my clients work with me after I talk to them, via phone, email, or face to face. I don't need to tell prospects what I tell each one that I talk to. I just need to tell them enough of what they want to know, so that they contact me.
But sometimes it is SO hard to define where to draw the line!
Is the information intimidating or helpful? Are prices helpful or scary?
Me, I won't contact someone who doesn't list prices. And I like information first. But I'm a techie, and my clients are not. So all that info has to be optional, and the prices have to be conveyed in a way that is flexible.
Laura
Mom to Eight
Firelight Business Enterprises, Inc.
http://www.firelightwebstudio.com
http://www.westernhillsinstitute.comPrivate Reply to Laura Wheeler | | Sep 08, 2007 11:03 pm | | re: re: re: re: re: Opinions on page width. | # |
Eileen Brown | | Reg and Steve - Thanks so much for getting the information
I needed to finally decide to go ahead with the web site re-
designs. I just hate to leave those tiny percentage people
out there all alone with no recourse but have to scroll
sideways.
Your efforts are much appreciated. Things change everyday
and we simply must keep up, eh? They just keep moving the
darn lines SO often anymore! LOL.
Have a great Sunday tomorrow.
Blessings,
Eileen :)
"The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple." - Oscar Wilde
http://www.buddywebworks.com/ - Buddy Web Works, More than just hosting.
http://www.buddycopywriting.com/ - Uh, not a web site yet, but the link works.
http://www.bekansas.com/ - A doofuss site, but kinda fun.Private Reply to Eileen Brown | | |
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