Since I'm just about done updating the UKCT main website, I'm now starting on planning to revamp the rather sucky (and totally cobbled-together) CTRA licence webpages (http://licence.ukct.net) and make something a bit more cool. You'd never believe, looking at that stuff, that I actually started out as a graphic designer.

I'm going to go back to MY roots for the site design (i.e. design it first, then build it). I'm going to make it multi-page, rather than try and get everything on one page as it is now, and I'm going to make it driving/racing themed. I'm going dark for this one.. mostly because I haven't done a dark-themed website in a looong time. I have the design already in my mind's eye, and that's not what I'm looking for advice on. The problem is dimensions.

I'm going to design the site to a fixed width. I want to retain a level of control over the layout that I'm not going to go variable width. But what dimensions should I design for. Historically, I've designed for an 800x600 browser window, but these days I don't know ANYone who's using less than 1280 pixel width monitor. Most people I know are using 1600 or 1900+ widescreens. IS there any point in catering for an 800x600 monitor in this day and age?

I've done a bit of research on the web, and all the pages I've seen so far are still suggesting that you should design to 800 (760px). The newest page I've seen, though, was last updated in 2004. I reckon we've moved on since then. No?

Your thoughts are gratefully received!

From the statistics I get from my own site, I'd say go for 1024. I got under 2% of the visitors coming in with 800 resolution, and about 25% coming in on 1280. Majority is using 1024 and if you run a fixed width, that will look ok on a 1280+ setup as well.

--- edit ---
I myself use 1280 on a 19" flatscreen monitor and I think it's a very ok resolution.

I have a 1400px wide monitor with a diagonal lenght of approx. 15".
But my browser-window is under almost no circumstance wider than 1024px. You can not honestly demand that I stop using any other application on my PC just to look at your website.
Usually I'm looking at my music playlist, I have a messaging service open, I chat with two people and I'm following the status of my bittorrent-client. Of those 1400x1050 pixels I have barely 900x650 left for the browser.

If you need more than 800 pixels width to display the information on your site you need to restructure.
That's my opinion as a user and hobby-webdesigner.

Vain

Quote from SamH :

.....but these days I don't know ANYone who's using less than 1280 pixel width monitor.

Right here bud!

Well, OK, technically, my monitor is 1280 or whatever pixels wide, but I use 1024x768 desktop resolution at home and at work. At home because I like to be able to read the text, LOL. At work I, probably like others, are limited to the crap that the IT department gives us, which for me would be a Celeron 1.2 with Intel onboard 2D graphics on a crappy small monitor with no sound so I can't even listen to music on it. Sure, I wouldn't think that there is anyone out there still running 800x600, but quite a few running 1024x768. Nothing is more annoying than to have to scroll a webpage over to see the entire thing.

Just my thoughts....

Oops, yeah, er... I don't surf LFS stuff at work, nope, not me, nothing related to LFS, huh uh....

I've got 1680 horizontal pixels, but my browser is never wider than about 1000 - it's the same size it was when I had 1280 horizontal pixels. I agree with Vain, and X-Ter. 1024 at the most.

740-800px in width for a fixed width.. some people have 800x600 even tho most have higher dimensions.. you want to have abit of space for the lower reso people =)..

1024 would do me fine. I run 1280 on the 17" at home (often with firefox, chat, tunes etc all working together), 1024 at work (I upped it from the standard 800. Come on boss, I'm no geriatric who needs large print ffs ). Although I wouldn't complain about 800

But anything over 1024 is overkill. I'm with mr rodgers - any web page where I have to scroll left & right just to see the whole thing is gonna piss me off. You hearin' me, myspace?

I do 99% of my web browsing on my laptop, which has a max res width of 1024, any web pages that are wider than this are a real pain in the arse to view.

Yep, I would say 1024*768 is a good minimum. Even the cheapest of the cheap monitor can do that res and any onboard gfx can run above that res.

You should design for 1024x768 resolutions. When I'm going for fixed width, and the design doesn't specifically stipulate a need for a smaller res, I always design with that resolution in mind.

The general trend is moving towards 1280x1024, especially as a typical physical screen size is getting larger. However, 1024x768 is still the most common resolution these days amongst the general population, and so I'd aim for designing for that. Always make sure you design a little under that resolution, though, as you want the site too fit nicely in the general viewport dimensions, rather than the screen resolution (due to the application window, toolbars, etc.).

The point made several times above is also that some people enjoy running multiple applications alongside each other - and you do have to allow for that to an extent, but don't be too drastic as there are always going to be people your design will not suit - and these will be the minority if you design correctly. Try to aim for an actual width for the site of somewhere between 800 and 880 pixels. Then just experiment. Resize your browser window to various resolution configurations (the web dev toolbar in Firefox is great for this) and see how it looks - then tweak

Design it for 1024x768... Anyone who is still using 800x600 should consider buying a pair of glasses or a new monitor ( I am a professional webdesigner, so it's not just blah-blah )

I usually make my websites 976 px wide - Perfect for 1024, even if you have the "Favorites"-folder open in IE

Bleh, I gave up designing pages for a particular dimension about 5 weeks after making my first hand coded web site (STCC - which was aweful). Make the page scale to the browser window

Examples: http://www.bansheestudios.com (nick my javascript from here if you want)
www.beckyrose.com (my first attempt - messy code, note: was for a particular job )
www.bansheestudios.com/vw/myWeb.php (my test page as I developed it)

Why make your users resize their browser to the site, it just doesnt make sense? The web is soooooo backward sometimes.

Quote from Becky Rose :

Bleh, I gave up designing pages for a particular dimension about 5 weeks after making my first hand coded web site (STCC - which was aweful). Make the page scale to the browser window

Examples: http://www.bansheestudios.com (nick my javascript from here if you want)
www.beckyrose.com (my first attempt - messy code, note: was for a particular job )
www.bansheestudios.com/vw/myWeb.php (my test page as I developed it)

Why make your users resize their browser to the site, it just doesnt make sense? The web is soooooo backward sometimes.

Not to offend you, but I think you're better in coding than in web-design. And your last statement: The background of the /vw/myWeb.php looks pretty strange on widescreen resolutions, so I'd need to resize my browser window for optimal viewing pleasure. Then again, I'm not good at designing anyway, all I do is mostly very plain, without any fancy stuff

Quote from SamH :

Since I'm just about done updating the UKCT main website, I'm now starting on planning to revamp the rather sucky (and totally cobbled-together) CTRA licence webpages (http://licence.ukct.net) and make something a bit more cool. You'd never believe, looking at that stuff, that I actually started out as a graphic designer.

I'm going to go back to MY roots for the site design (i.e. design it first, then build it). I'm going to make it multi-page, rather than try and get everything on one page as it is now, and I'm going to make it driving/racing themed. I'm going dark for this one.. mostly because I haven't done a dark-themed website in a looong time. I have the design already in my mind's eye, and that's not what I'm looking for advice on. The problem is dimensions.

I'm going to design the site to a fixed width. I want to retain a level of control over the layout that I'm not going to go variable width. But what dimensions should I design for. Historically, I've designed for an 800x600 browser window, but these days I don't know ANYone who's using less than 1280 pixel width monitor. Most people I know are using 1600 or 1900+ widescreens. IS there any point in catering for an 800x600 monitor in this day and age?

I've done a bit of research on the web, and all the pages I've seen so far are still suggesting that you should design to 800 (760px). The newest page I've seen, though, was last updated in 2004. I reckon we've moved on since then. No?

Your thoughts are gratefully received!

Fixed width == bad news and can _never_ be accurately determined.. so what if someone has a 800x600 screen res.. they might also have a sidebar open in their browser making their actual viewing area maybe 640x600.. not to mention other silly sidebar type contraptions on their desktop making the area smaller still.. fluid designs are always much more adaptable and fail to see why people even consider fixed width formats.. this is 2007, not 1997



Ian

Quote from Becky Rose :

Make the page scale to the browser window

Oh god no, scaling is the worst thing ever. It sucks for people with wide screens.
I'm a web designer by trade and we build all our sites either 760px or 950px depending on content.
You need to look at your audience too, anyone who plays LFS is NOT going to be using 800x600 screen resolution, and if they do they don't deserve to see the website!
I'd suggest 950px for the CTRA site, best of luck

Quote from SamH :

...
I'm going to design the site to a fixed width. I want to retain a level of control over the layout that I'm not going to go variable width. But what dimensions should I design for. Historically, I've designed for an 800x600 browser window, but these days I don't know ANYone who's using less than 1280 pixel width monitor. Most people I know are using 1600 or 1900+ widescreens. IS there any point in catering for an 800x600 monitor in this day and age?..

I know a lot of people who use 2 monitors (1 for the code and 1 for the output). But that or their resolution doesn't matter when I do websites.

It ALWAYS depends on the content you are presenting and of the group of people/costumers you want to reach. Most web-designers have forgot about this! Sad but true

So if you ask yourself what kind of people you want to reach with the website. Then it's pretty easy to get an idea and find the right resolution.

Just check the LFS-Forum for a poll about "what resolution you are using" or start your own poll. Then you got the best results because you reach the CTRA driving people, who should visit your re-designed website, directly. Or check the stats-log of the actual website and check what's the most common resolution the visitors use.etc.

Quote from nikimere :

Oh god no, scaling is the worst thing ever. It sucks for people with wide screens.

But you can resize your browser window to something more square.. making it fixed width but larger than someone's physical screen res means they have no choice but to leave your site and visit the next one that works

I haven't written a fixed width site in years, and never once had any complaints from clients.



Regards,

Ian

You cant please everyone.
For an aesthetics point of view fluid sites just look crap in most cases.
I have never seen anyone leave a browser side bar open permanently. Maybe you do, but you are one of few.
You cant please everyone so for me i always for for the majority, forget the one of two bad apples

Fixed width?? can you still get that???


Fluid FTW!!

(or be like me...have fixed side panels and a fluid centre section....http://www.tenball.co.uk if you want to see what I mean )

Quote :

Not to offend you, but I think you're better in coding than in web-design.

Believe me, no offence taken. I've been making websites for only a few weeks really, the STCC was my first proper hand coded page and it's pretty bad, since then i've been working on my skills with Javascript and php - and you are quite right i'm more interested in what is technically achieveable.

Quote :

You need to look at your audience too, anyone who plays LFS is NOT going to be using 800x600 screen resolution.

Home = Play LFS
Work = browse LFS websites

Quote :

Oh god no, scaling is the worst thing ever. It sucks for people with wide screens.

Hmmmm. Scaling need not be effected by aspect ratio. Expect an update to my framework soon .

Quote from nikimere :

You cant please everyone.

heh true, I've lost count how many times I've redesigned a few bits for a current client after they'd showed the ideas to a few people who all had differing opinions

Quote :

For an aesthetics point of view fluid sites just look crap in most cases.

Maybe using a 1280x1024 res has blinded me as to this reason, but I much prefer a site that will utilise my entire browser window than a small block in the top left corner of it.

Quote :

I have never seen anyone leave a browser side bar open permanently. Maybe you do, but you are one of few.
You cant please everyone so for me i always for for the majority, forget the one of two bad apples

I don't know off hand of anyone either, I don't personally use it at all.. but IMO, a web designer should cater for _everyone_ (or at least as many as possible) rather than a select few. This is also the reason I _never_ design "flash only sites" or have javascript without a non-javascript fallback (ie: using href="javascript:......" or href="#" onclick="......." is just a recipe for disaster).

I'm draconian as such for my viewing habits. JS, Flash and Java are all disabled. JS gets enabled via 'noscript' in Firefox for sites I deem worthy.. for the most part, just like Flash, JS has been abused by scum and ad pushers so it suits me.

Personally when I design sites, I check them initially with Firefox as it's my daily browser and conforms to W3C standards pretty well, then I check in IE and Opera.. and lastly Lynx.. to make sure that it breaks down nicely when JS / CSS etc isn't available (phones (although this may have changed these days?), screen readers, etc).. I think you should always aim for the biggest audience, not a collection of people, unless you're designing an intranet or something for a company

Everyone will have their own methods / styles.. but fixed width sites are a real annoyance to me personally as most are designed to ~740px wide and thus occupy a small strip down the left side of my screen.

Just my £0.02 worth anyway



Regards,

Ian

Quote from Ian.H :

Maybe using a 1280x1024 res has blinded me as to this reason, but I much prefer a site that will utilise my entire browser window than a small block in the top left corner of it.

There is an ideal number of words per line though, more than that and text becomes more difficult to read (unless line height and/or font sizings changes dynamically as the browser window widens - which isn't possible without scripting). That's why I still work to (mostly) fixed-width layouts, so I can make sure the text works well.

FTR I prefer to use em sizings wherever possible. If you've got the same resizable units in use for both the text and the whitespace around it, then users running non-default sizings will at least still get the ideal ratio.

Quote from Ian.H :

IMO, a web designer should cater for _everyone_ (or at least as many as possible)

I agree, but I don't agree that this credo necessarily means you need a fluid-width layout. People with both narrow and wide browser windows can use a narrow web page, and IMHO a narrow web page is usually preferable to a wide one anyway, regardless of the size of the browser.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

There is an ideal number of words per line though, more than that and text becomes more difficult to read (unless line height and/or font sizings changes dynamically as the browser window widens - which isn't possible without scripting). That's why I still work to (mostly) fixed-width layouts, so I can make sure the text works well.

I guess so (not something I complain of myself) and do sometimes look at pages I've coded and think they look bare if there's only a few shortish paragraphs.. but when resizing to smaller res' it works out.. but then other pages that are much fuller look strange in the lower res sizes.

Quote :

FTR I prefer to use em sizings wherever possible. If you've got the same resizable units in use for both the text and the whitespace around it, then users running non-default sizings will at least still get the ideal ratio.

I use em units for fonts always and normally use a mixture of px, em and % for design areas.. often depends on what I need and of course, hacking things to work in "do as I like" apps, namely IE

Quote :

I agree, but I don't agree that this credo necessarily means you need a fluid-width layout.

Agreed. That was more of a general statement than fixed / fluid layout, but I didn't clarify

Quote :

People with both narrow and wide browser windows can use a narrow web page, and IMHO a narrow web page is usually preferable to a wide one anyway, regardless of the size of the browser.

It's not something I've done a "poll" on personally, just gone by client / user responses but agree that narrow would fit for the majority, but that does mean having to keep it below 800px width, but as mentioned above, not everyone has a full 800px width to play with even if that's their screen res.. different OSes / browsers / themes may even have different width scroll bars changing the actual browser rendering area etc. At least with a fluid layout, you can almost guarantee it'll fit regardless of render area.

That said, this is all naturally just my opinion, there's no real right or wrong way



Regards,

Ian

My latest two websites have been designed to fit inside 800px width. The reason for this is I think our customer base are probably not that into their computers so could have quite old monitors. Either way they aren't too small that I struggle to fit the required content so I think it works.

http://www.designsonpine.co.uk/index.php

Latest one, bang on 800px wide. So is still viewable with a 800 resolution with minimal horizontal scrolling.

http://www.crazycottage.co.uk/

675px wide, so comfortable viewing for 800 resolution.

I'd have thought you'd be safe making it fit 1024 width, 9xx px. Most LFSers that require to look up your site are going to be running that or higher. My resolution for example is 1152 x 864.

Your first site Keiran produces a horizontal scrollbar for me at 800x600 browser window size as your header image is 800px in width and doesn't allow for the browser's vertical scrollbar.

Just an observation



Regards,

Ian