When will 1024x768 Replace 800x600 for Web Design? 259
Dr.X asks: "It seems as users get bigger and better monitors and video cards, the standard for web resolution is slowly approaching 1024. There is a fairly in depth answer over at Google stating that we are likely to be safe at 800x600 but when will we hit 1024 as the standard. What's Slashdot's opinion?"
Why is this even necessary? (Score:5, Insightful)
Web layou should no longer be done in pixels, period. This will even -look- a lot better, not to mention fit a lot more resolutions, once SVG or similar vector-rendering support is built into browsers. This shouldn't be far off for Mozilla, and IE will have to catch up.
Re:Why is this even necessary? (Score:5, Insightful)
They will talk about standards w/o really knowing what that means or where/why they exist.
Re:Why is this even necessary? (Score:5, Informative)
The resolution I develop for is 100%, but one can make good fixed-width layouts, even ones that run off the viewport horizontally, which requires real talent (or good luck). See CSS Zen Garden [csszengarden.com].
Re:Why is this even necessary? (Score:3, Informative)
As for your not being a 'real' web designer, that doesn't matter so long as you are a skilled individual who approaches the task methodically and with a good eye to problems and their solutions. I fully agree with your attitude about so called professionals. Many of them probably know far less t
Re:Why is this even necessary? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why is this even necessary? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Why is this even necessary? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Why is this even necessary? (Score:5, Insightful)
Grab.
Re:Why is this even necessary? (Score:5, Insightful)
Web applications (effectively anything that has active/dynamic content) are just implementations of the Client/Server paradigm. Back before the web Client/Server development was considered quite an art and effective practioners were respected.
This was not elitism; good client server is involved requiring consideration to be given to information issues and protocols. Web design is actually a difficult implementation of this because it is a 'one shot' protocol with only limited state keeping capability.
Because these designers don't realise this they assume that they can design a site and someone else just does the server code behind it.
For all but the simplest sites this is plain rubbish and the reason why there are so many poor implementations in web land.
Truly great sites have been designed with this interdependence in mind. Even if the original versions didn't, either by decision or a kind of Darwinian Extreme Refactoring the current great versions take this into account.
For good sites, you either need architects who are also good artists, or teams where each skill is regarded with the respect it requires without undue emphasis being given to one discipline over another. This is a professional and management issue that shouldn't be a problem. Other engineering disciplines manage to combine art with engineering effectively (cars, architecture, civils) so it should be achievable. I suspect it all comes down to professionalism (the real stuff, not the excrement bad managers talk about)
Re:Why is this even necessary? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why is this even necessary? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why is this even necessary? (Score:2)
This should be the norm, as it is the functional base which the web was
Re:Why is this even necessary? (Score:2)
What's
Re:Why is this even necessary? (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Images don't scale, clients often want nice big branding
2. Clients will often override the designers wishes. Fixed width sites are still pretty popular.
Having said that, I'm happy with the minimum target res being 800*600. I don't like browsing full screen and I often nearly have to do that already. The vast majority of users still browse on a PC, handheld devices can force reorganisation of the layout, like Opera for Symbian does.
Re:Why is this even necessary? (Score:3, Insightful)
In any case, it's still a good idea to make sure the page looks and works as desired at certain key resolutions (800x600 being an important one for now) in certain key browsers (IE on Windows usually being the big one
Image scaling Right Sizing Re:Why is this even (Score:2)
I have the problem that I own an 18 inch CRT; I usually run it in 1600x1200 mode. The problem is that a lot of the features of the web images are barely visible, they are so tiny.
Now, I claim that scaling up the image by 2x so that it covers more pixels is the right thing to do in that case- the angle subtended on my eye would be the same on the 1600x1200 mode as in 800x600 mode on the same CRT and the rendered
Re:Why is this even necessary? (Score:4, Insightful)
2) Current CSS does not allow for portable image scaling. CSS3 has this support, but it will be some time before CSS3 can be considered a baseline.
3) The use of tables vs. CSS has little to do with the issue of resolution scaling. A table-based page can be made to dynamically resize its contents, and a CSS-based page can be (for online news outlets, is commonly made to) be a pixel perfect, fixed print publication analog.
4) Of course layout should be done in pixels. Computer displays are in pixels. What else would you use? Inches? Font sizing? What do those mean on a 15" monitor versus a 21" monitor? I believe what you mean is that layout should be done in vectors rather than rasters. See note #1.
5) The Adobe SVG plugin has been available for IE for quite a while now -- and scriptable too. Developers haven't adopted it. Flash is vector-based and very small, but many (most?) of the slashdot community derides its use.
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Does IE have its issues? Absolutely. Its (lack of) standards support consistently frustrates me. But then again, Netscape 4.x consistently frustrated me before IE. All of these "in a perfect world" rants don't work in the real world.
Want SVG? Where are the tools? Illustrator? Not everyone wants to steal a copy or pay that much money. Sodipodi? Good, but not for most professionals nor for absolute beginners.
If you can do graphics programming and have the time, help get the SVG implementation in Mozilla up to snuff and get those tools together. If you can't, you've got to wait and use the tools that are available. Life sucks. Get used to it and do the best you can with what you've got. Fight the battles you can win.
Web accessibility; Standards support; Reduce usage of tables for layout; Make alternate stylesheets for multiple clients. Fight the battles you can win.
Re:Why is this even necessary? (Score:2)
When there becomes available a technology to allow the end users browser to automatically scale the entire webpage competantly, i will begin designing purely scalable sites, but until then, my pages will have a recommended minimum size and a recommended
Re:Why is this even necessary? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why is this even necessary? (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't "scale" anything. Your TV has a 648x486 resolution no matter what physical size it is. The problems with fixed resolution sites is because of applying the thinking that the web should work like a tv.
PDA's now surf the web, and though you often still have to make explicit "small screen" design decisions so it doesn't look like you just smooshed a big page down, the general trend is toward screen size independence, not some ridiculous 1024x768 size. Besides, my entire screen is 1024x768, and that's the default on most machines now (recall that most people never change the defaults). With all the borders, taskbars, toolbars, tabs, menus, and other visual chrome, most people don't have nearly that resolution left. I certainly don't, even in full-screen mode.
HTML is designed to scale (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:HTML is designed to scale (Score:2)
Re:HTML is designed to scale (Score:5, Interesting)
I can guess why some people would still want to design fixed-resolution sites. Some of these web-designers probably come from a print background, and as a result of their training, they are stuck with a lot of print-specific notions that are admittedly hard to discard.
I have to concede that designing for a fixed resolution is simply easier in most cases (especially if you use a lot of bitmaps and rely on oldskool 1-px tricks to achieve your layout). Fixed resolutions give you absolute coordinates, which are just more convenient to work with. To some extent, they also help to ensure your layout's robustness across browsers (e.g. a width="30%" doesn't always give you 30% in all browsers) The layout at wolfram.com, for instance, would have been more difficult to achieve using scalable elements.
CSS solves a big part of the problem by giving you a level of control that allows for precision layout, but unfortunately some elements like bitmaps just don't scale (and SVG isn't widespread yet).
The other (albeit inadvertent) benefit of contraining the size of a page to a lowest-common-denominator fixed resolution like 640x480, is that it keeps the text-width small for the majority of people who run at higher resolutions. The advantage of doing this is the same as the advantage of having columns: studies have shown that shorter text-widths make for higher readability.
Having said that, I prefer scalable-resolution websites myself.
At the end of the day, it's about achieving a balance between function and form. And it's really really hard to do, so most people choose one or the other. Props to you if you can do both.
The Reason Why IBM Does What It Does.... (Score:4, Informative)
How do I know? I used to work for them as their lead HTML developer back in the day, and worked extensive for their website standards.
Re:HTML is designed to scale (Score:3, Informative)
My major problems with fixed-width are that A) fonts are fixed which is really bad for some people and B) some fix the site to the top left corner rather than center of page.
Re:HTML is designed to scale (Score:4, Insightful)
A big problem is that there is no requirement for proper training in the industry and because most clients know less than the 'designers' and have become used to disappointment they accept any tripe that is spouted to them.
I've felt for many years that there should be more emphasis on UI design issues and their execution than image manipulation and CSS. The problem is that most emphasis on available information for newbies or wannabes is squewed from the wron direct, namesly appearence rather than content.
Unless it is a site for which the media is all important (arty farty for its own sake, or some hip community sites, etc. - all relevant and valuable expressive arts in their own right) the main reason I go to a site is for content. I want that content to be accessible and easy to assimilate. I don't want to get eyestrain because some moron has decided that 4 point is perfect (and looks crap on my hi-res monitor) or has neglected simple and easy to learn colour rules that any halfway decent UI or Graphics (art or computer) would make blindingly (sorry:) ) obvious. I don't want to spent half an hour hunting over a daft image to find hot links to jump to the information I want and I don't want to wait 5 minutes to find that that was the wrong link because some moron has decided to feed me 30megs of uncompresses/unoptiminsed/gratuitous images. (Insert other obvious rants as necessary. If you can't think of any more, then I hope you are not a 'web designer'
Like too many areas of our industry there is too little emphasis on professional training and it is all too normal for untrained and inexperienced people to be employed to do serious engineering work; and, believe me, designing a first rate web site is down to good engineering (even if you also have to be a good artist as well). Why is this the case? In no other industry would rank amateurs be granted such a free hand. When some figures state that over 60% of projects fail to live up to expectation or be delivered then the financial costs and dangers are obviously high. When safety issues are at stake, the problem becomes even worse.
While I have known many self taught people who are utterly brilliant, they are the minority among the self taught. It is entirely possible that should they get formally qualified, then they may also be among a minority among the 'professionals' as well, but that is another story and has more to do with the quality of training available today.
All in all, though, when it comes to web design, while we allow people whose experience stems from reading a "teach yourself in 24 minutes" book then we will continue to have poorly designed websites.
Anecdotally, I must tell a story about one such person. Several years ago I took charge of a project where MISmanagement had allowed degeneration to a dangerous level. In the team I inherited was a hairdresser (nothing against hairdessers) who had picked up a copy of Homesite and magically 'became' a web-designer. Most of my previous rants could easily apply to him. On one occasion X3C compliant HTML I produced broke his poorly designed CSS and he went ape. Seeing an opportunity to belittle me and with a total lack of professionalism, rather than discussing it with me, he announced this 'failing' to whole team stating my code was "not standard" and that this was the problem with all us 'Linux Types' and Computer Scientists. Unfortunately for him, the code was X3C standard compliant and I could even tell him (after a quick check
Re:HTML is designed to scale (Score:4, Insightful)
Alternatively, we need more crappy management rags to write articles about how scalability is the next new trend in web design. We can get PHB's around the world dragging the corner of their browsers around to make sure that their site is buzzword complient, and we'll have tricked them into technical improvement.
Considering those types of publications will print anything for money, I'm sure that given enough desire we could get this done.
Portable Devices (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't use my browser maximised (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't use my browser maximised (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I don't use my browser maximised (Score:2)
Re:I don't use my browser maximised (Score:2)
Re:I don't use my browser maximised (Score:2)
[jaws dropping]
One reason I use the windows maximized is that I seldom have to manually take data from one window to another. Cut and paste solve it at most times.
In the rare occasions when I have to do it, I do use half size windows, and put them side-by-side, yes. But I think doing this as a common practice is just plain inneficient, as I'll be dedicating space on the screen on a program I cannot interact, as it isn't focused. But then again, this is my op
Re:I don't use my browser maximised (Score:3, Insightful)
The Mac interface, on the other hand, is designed for multi-tasking.
To use an analogy, Windows users are like a man at a desk. When he needs to work on something, he goes
Re:I don't use my browser maximised (Score:3, Interesting)
I really couldn't disagree more. The fact of the matter is your eyes can only look at one thing at a time. No matter how talented you are your eyes work as a pair. Just try looking at this post and something else at the same time. Can't do it.
So why on earth would you want your monitor to display more things th
in praise of virtual desktops (Score:3, Insightful)
Virtual desktops, for those who don't know, are multiple desktops which are all active on your computer at the same time. You switch between desktops by clicking a pager or pressing a key (e.g. on my linux desktop I use F1-F4
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I don't use my browser maximised (Score:2, Interesting)
Even slashdot? I run 1280x1024 and with slashdot maximized I find it very difficult to scan back to the beginning of the line. I never maximize my web browser for this reason, there's still a lot of sites out there which are designed for no particular resolution and will scale the width of the text up to whatever you set the browser window at.
One thing that bothers me a fair bit is the number of sites that use jav
Re:I don't use my browser maximised (Score:2)
It is very uncommon for me to be only using one program. I tend to have a browser open for documentation/news/surfing beside whatever real work I'm doing.
When I'm programming: 1 browser window for javadoc, 1 terminal window for compile, n text editor windows for all the files I'm working on.
When I'm doing finances: Gnucash next to a web browser for my financial institution.
When doing email: my email program next to my web browser so that when I open links
forget resolution. (Score:5, Insightful)
that said, what i want to see more of is that websites start to scale with my browser size. if more people used relative dimensions for sites, then i could set my browser to whatever size i want for viewing that site, and it would scale to fill my browser whatever its size may be. that's the onf the things i love about slashdot - it fits my screen be it 640x480 or higher.
however, on that same note, slashdot is still unusable on my PDA. why? because it only fits on 640x480 or bigger.
still, using percentages for widths and ems, exs, or percentages for heights is ideal if you want to maintain layout, because i've found that some users configure their UA to use miniature font sizes and small text areas need to adjust to fit them. so i've also started using relative units for my font size.
but in the case of a PDA, it's better to serve a simpler, smaller style sheet to make those users happy and keep the hits coming.
because, that's what it's all about isn't it? getting hits. nothing else really matters to the web designer.
Re:forget resolution. (Score:2)
I agree... my screen is 1280x854, yet I typically surf with my browser window set at about 800px width. I enjoy having a widescreen display because I can display two documents side by side with little trouble... for example: I'll view both a webpage and a css file while designing a website. So even though people have bigger monitors, it doesn't mean that people have "bigger" browsers...
And regarding slashdot not fitting on your pda: try this [slashdot.org]
Re:forget resolution. (Score:2)
Re:forget resolution. (Score:2)
Well.... never? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Well.... never? (Score:2, Insightful)
Perhaps more emphasis should be set on UI issues than making pretty glittery images when 'training' web de
outliers... (Score:2)
Re:outliers... (Score:2)
1. Use RSS [reallysimp...cation.com]. I started TODAY and have fallen in lust.
2. Don't use Flash. I haven't installed Flash on Firefox for I find it annoying.
The second point is more controversial, I understand. But perhaps someone agrees?
Re:outliers... (Score:2)
Some numbers (Score:5, Informative)
Our site was designed for 1024x768, this site is running since January; the stats are since the end of March. It's a webshop (computer hardware) in the Netherlands. Numbers were found using a hidden frame that posts a form with values filled in by a bit of javascript.
Of course, designing for a fixed resolution is bad, should always look good, yadda yadda... It'll work on lower resolutions but you may have to scroll sideways now and then.
Re:Some numbers (Score:2)
That would of course be nice to know, we are unlikely to get feedback from users about that. Hopefully some of them realize they want a bigger resolution, and buy a bigger monitor at our site :-)
On the other, we use a lot of space to show a lot of detail for products in the product lists; the table that shows the list of CPUs shows our product id, the brand name, the description of the cpu, the speed in GHz, max FSB speed, cache size, socket, whether it's OEM/boxed/etc, price, availability, availability at
Re:Some numbers (Score:2)
It is a problem in a feedback site like
There do exist technolo
More pet peeves (Score:5, Insightful)
The other thing I detest is sites that decide how many pixels everything should be. I run Mozilla maximized to 1600x1200 on a 21" monitor. Numerous sites think I can read text a few pixels high. I can't. I turned on the Mozilla preference that lets me enforce the minimum point size.
Even the Google Answers site linked to screws it up. Their horizontal ad bar at the top gets vertically truncated since they decided to allocate a fixed number of pixels to it. Other sites have borders around the article as a fixed length and so I get articles abruptly terminating and have to drag the mouse on the text to see what is below the end of the arbitrary bottom border.
As everyone else says in these comments, stop trying to control stuff to pixels and instead specify the big picture for the layout. If you have to ask the question about what the best viewed size is, then your design is badly broken.
Re:More pet peeves (Score:2)
Re:More pet peeves (Score:2, Funny)
One's own ignorance is bliss. It's the ignorance of others which is Hell.
Re:More pet peeves (Score:2)
Why didn't you mention this sooner!
Web sites have found a way to maintain a size that might still be possible on older machines and handhelds instead of trying to race for huge pages, if you want everyone to expand their images remember that advertising will keep step. Dialup is still the norm, (Sigh friggin thailand Dial-up) let sleeping dogs lie on this one.
Final note 800x600 is nice for vmware which is good for us browser people.
Re:More pet peeves (Score:2)
The problem here is that CSS is, fundamentally, inadequate for specifying complex layouts. You get to specify dimensions in pixel
Re:More pet peeves (Score:2)
position:fixed
Was made for the problem you mention.
IE dont see it, by the way.
Use Gecko!
Re:More pet peeves (Score:2)
The min-width and max-width declarations help, but they're not supported in everyone's favorite browser.
Does anyone know if CSS3 has anything in it that helps this situation?
Splash pages aren't necessarily bad (Score:3, Insightful)
I've seen numerous instances of good ones, though. A nice company logo that appears for a couple of seconds (with the ability to escape out) is fine. THat's a splash page. A 2 minute movie isn't.
Oh no (Score:4, Informative)
Content is what matters, not fixed-sized cool-looking layout (you know, it's possible to make nice looking, functional web sites with scalable layout).
I've noticed that the most notorious misusers of fixed layout are designers, who have used to design magazines. Apparently there is not enough education about web designing at art schools even nowadays.
Depends on your audience... (Score:3, Insightful)
Gamers generally have better gfx cards, and monitors - hence are more able to handle a larger res.
Re:Depends on your audience... (Score:5, Funny)
It's not just a technical question (Score:3, Interesting)
- when PHB's stop being paranoid about not reaching 0.2% of their possible clients
- when web designers start thinking out of the box, quite literally
Technically, pages can be made to scale, but it is not perfect. What is missing is the option to scale to a certain width and then stop. I usually have my browser about 1100-1200pixels wide when surfing. At 1600, scalable sites seem to wither. A design for a certain width (be it 800 or 1600) may technically scale, aestetically it won't. I haven't found a solution for it either, except to limit the width. There's no css for scale to 1200 and fix it at wider screens.
Re:It's not just a technical question (Score:4, Informative)
The standard answer to CSS complaints: actually, there is, it just isn't implemented in Internet Explorer. The following CSS
div.main-content { max-width: 1200px; }
does exactly what it says on the tin (constrain width to 1200 pixels).
Re:It's not just a technical question (Score:2)
Understanding of the limitations and advantages of the technology are required. This is technical.
Perhaps you need to take a step back and define exactly what you are doing; what you require of the site.
If it is a platform to show off your artistic prowess, then maybe your points have 100% validity (I'm not being sarcastic, even artists need to advertise) however perhaps if you rethought your requirements
Monitor resolution vs. window size (Score:4, Insightful)
My OS has this very advanced thing called a "windowing system" that allows me to have multiple windows visible on screen (partially) behind one another. And no window needs to be full screen! In fact, most are smaller! So why on earth should designers relate the design of their website to the resolution of the entire monitor? Make something that scales to fit the window size your visitors use and leave it at that.
[rant]
Slightly related to the "what size should you design for" discussion are the abominations that are webpages that try to fit the window size to the size of their design. I'd like to see webdesigners that include such offensive resizing in their sites to be strapped to a rack that resizes them to every room they enter.
[/rant]
Re:Monitor resolution vs. window size (Score:2)
That was the best rant I have seen in a long, long time. :-D
Standard sizes, we dont need no stinking standard (Score:3, Interesting)
One of my most important clients have been at 1024+ for some (7+) years, however they also have machines accessing at 640 and 800.
Worse yet most of the high resolution machines are stuck at Netscape 4.7 and color depth of 256.
We decided years ago to fore go glitz for operability, design from the start for backward compatibility and we've done some nice looking stuff that has stood the test of time.
Flash, Java-apps and the like are blocks that have to be replaced and don't work for everyone.
Designing for 800 or less means that screens should less likely to become over saturated with 'content' and hence easier to read on a screen.
The answer is to know you audience and be smart (not clever) about who you think you can discard.
Some fool slapped me up and locked my browser the other day for having javascript enabled while visiting his site, not even giving me contact information. Eventually after 1 1/2 hours of phone calls I got it, and his boss, and access restored for the paying customers of the company.
Be careful the web is a communications medium, not a game console (parts of the net and web can be, but the standard is communications).
Depends on the target audience (Score:3, Insightful)
It also depends on the most common size of the display device being used. You'd be surprised how many people are still using 15inch monitors.
So, who is your audience? If you expect a large number of viewers to be over 30, I would stick with 800x600.
Why it matters (Score:4, Interesting)
Having standardized sizes matters to develop a universally usable site. It's not just a marketing ploy; in many cases, it's a legal requirement. Before you complain about how little it matters and demand that people be flexible, consider the following:
First, a site must be attractive. You may be a purist who still thinks that pretty pictures and good design isn't necessary if you present enough information, but you'd be wrong. Unfortunately, people still judge things by their looks. Even if you've presented your information in such a way as to make it extraordinarily easy to use and navigate, many people will never know that. Often, they'll see that your site looks like crap and figure your business is run the same way. Imagine yourself in the lobby of a company you're considering doing business with. Sure, the walls are sound and the furniture doesn't have holes in it. But if everything is cheap white plastic and particleboard, you're going to wonder if this company isn't just some fly-by-night operation. Thus, having an attractive site is important.
Second, the World Wide Web Consortium has very specific requirements [w3.org] for a page to be "usable". What happens if you don't do it there way? Well, you can be sued, for one thing. Also, your company will not be allowed to do business with the government, as you are most likely not in compliance with section 508 [section508.gov], the same series of regulations that require wheelchair access, braille, and other accessibility assists for those with disabilities.
Third, you've got to make your site usable. Usability is not the same as accessibility. A 100% accessible site can be 99% unusable if it isn't clear what a user should do, how they should navigate, etc. Just because you've got braille on all of your stairways doesn't mean your users will know what floor to hit if you don't have a building directory somewhere, easy to find and easy to read. As such, it's important to make sure any idiot can navigate your site with ease. Do user testing. Record the sessions. Don't focus so much on what your users say, so much as what they do. I once had a user try to click on something that wasn't a link (but that could have been), then tell me he "should've known better"... but he didn't. (Naturally, it was a link an hour later.) ;-)
Once you've established that your site has to be cleanly and professionally designed, accessible and usable, you now have to make sure none of these elements breaks as you move from machine to machine, browser to browser, and platform to platform. You'll quickly notice that suddenly, you can't make your site scale as much as you want. You see that smoothly-flowing text on a 800x600 screen looks hopelessly cluttered on a 640x480 screen and ridiculously wide, yet short on a 1024x768 screen. You begin to develop visual guides that will work with lower monitor resolutions, yet still look professional on the larger screens. Your designers produce a style guide that begins to define specific column widths and template sizes. And you notice... that the web really isn't as scalable as you thought it was.
What the standard is matters because, if you want to be taken seriously or treated professionally, you had damn well make sure that your site is attractive, accessible, and usable. If not, you'll watch all of your competition march on by, taking your audience with it, regardless of whether you're out to make money or not. If your audience sees that someone else offers the same thing you do, but it's nicer and easier to use, they're going to go see that someone else, and that will be that. You had better take into account what resolutions your users have at their disposal, or your sites will cease to exist.
Re:Why it matters (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, this really depends on your audience. Go to this site or google or ebay and then tell me about attractive = requirement.
Third, you've got to make your site usable.
That's why you shouldn't design to a particular resolution your site becomes unusable when, say, I have two windows on my screen. Or I fire up the Treo... or for that matter, when my half-blind dad browses at 640x480 on his 19" monitor. As for all the tripe you dripped about style guides and the like, reality is that you can do an OUTSTANDING job making a site that looks good at many resolutions. The web is not print media. It is designed to scroll vertically (hence anchors and hyperlinks)... It can be resized and altered by the user when she goes into preferences and overrides your beautiful 9pt type.
Re:Why it matters (Score:4, Insightful)
An excellent idea. Actually, I think the design treatments applied on Google's site are excellent, and you can bet they spent quite a bit developing it. They have a nice-looking, fast-loading logo that exists on every page, reinforcing their brand. It is further reinforced by using the logo as a navigational tool, with the "o"s scaling out as more and more results become available. Other than that, design is minimal, both to decrease loading time and to avoid distracting attention from the search results. Slashdot's design is also attractive, to a particular audience, and certainly makes each article, navigation section and callout easy to read, without making the site too busy. And guess what kind of people are attracted to the eBay school of design? The kind who buy things. Lots of things, the gaudier the better. These sites are attractive to their respective audiences. Regardless, the statement you quoted was not intended to say that "pretty pictures" must *always* be present. It was intended to refute the idea that they should *never* be present.
In an ideal world, you'd be correct... but it isn't an ideal world. If your site requires a significant amount of navigation, you're going to be stuck indenting all of your content at least 100-150 pixels to the left. If you use less than 400-ish pixels for your content area, your text becomes difficult to read. To compensate for the many different browsers and resolutions, browser-sniffing was invented. Thus, we can often get information about the user's machine before we even deliver the code to the user's browser, saving the trouble of scaling the site down by two thirds or more. Instead, we just deliver an entirely different template.
This line of thought begins to address something you mentioned earlier: target markets. If you know what your market is, you can design for it. If your market is corporate workers and executives, you design for it. If your market is mobile users, you design for it. If your market is IT professionals and geeks, you design for it. In any case, you need to know what to design for, and studies like the ones that spawned this article will give you a basis to start with. I'm not advocating that you should design sites specifically engineered to be unable to scale. Sure, it's possible to design sites that scale wonderfully. But it's also quite common to get a client spec that requires so much that there's no way it can scale gracefully.
The point of my post was to explain why knowing what the market is using is important, not to say that we should pigeonhole our sites for any standard "just because". That includes pigeonholing sites that "must be scalable in six dimentions". Sure, scalability is important, but it isn't always possible to do. It depends on your market, your requirements, and your client. Knowing all of these things requires research, which is exactly what this article has collected. That's why it matters, and that's the real point I'm trying to make.
Re:Why it matters (Score:2)
I think the reverse will happen (Score:3, Informative)
thats MHO.
Fixed resolution, not minimum resolution (Score:5, Insightful)
There are valid and reasonable cases for choosing a 'minimum' resolution, expecially when you are designing web apps or intranet apps that would be too awkward to use efficiently if you didn't have the on screen real estate.
However, the reason most people use a 'minimum' resolution is that they do not have the skills to make sites that can scale easily so they choose a size that they can work with. Because they don't scale, then they stay the same size no matter what the window size is. How many sites have you been to where, when you maximise the window, the content is only on the left 2/3 of the screen??
These are 'Fixed' resolution sites, not 'minimum'. And we will be stuck with them until these alleged developers actually learn how and why they should use the available technologies (CSS, JavaScript, etc). Stop accepting their 'excuses' for not using them, check if they are making these decisions because they aren't qualified enough to make the call.
Don't ask for screen size, size with the window (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, my desktop is 2560 pixel wide and 1024 pixel high - two Flexscan L557 in Xinerama mode. You will not see me running programs full screen, not even full monitor most of the time. People having 1600x1200 are more likely to have two 800x1200 windows side by side than running one window 1600x1200.
Build resizing pages, do not assume full screen windows, and do not even ask for screen resolutions.
Umm (Score:2)
Often i use 1280x1024 or 1600x1200, or 1280x854 on my PowerBook.
If I use 1024x768 its because i am using a crappy ass LCD (not laptop one) where 1024x768 is its max resolution and I wish i could go higher.
Who the hell uses 800x600 these days? Slashdot looks awful in 800x600, as do alot of websites. If people are still using 800x600 they are still probably running Windows 95 and some ancient browser so they won't see your website anyway.
D.
When people can print pages 1024 pixels wide (Score:2)
Don't preach at me to change their browsers. These are companies with users all over the w
Up-to-date resolutions stats (Score:2)
Probably slightly skewed, but interesting non-the-less.
The page also shows browser usage stats, and whether javascript is enabled or not (92% yes).
You'll get the page here [w3schools.com]
T.
Sometimes I fear ... (Score:2)
Back in the dark ages, when a web was something you cleaned out of a server case, and the internet was a new fangled name for the Arpanet I remember the 'joy' of getting textual information from the net. We had a couple of formats ranging from text, all the way through wordstar, troff and TeX, all having to be saved and/or extracted before we could even attempt to read them.
Back then the output was text and
Irrelevant. (Score:2)
A designer speaks (Score:2, Insightful)
Fixed width sites are good (Score:2)
1) Consistency. There are a myriad of different environments that your site will have to function in. Different browsers, different resolutions, different OS. By setting the width, you take _some_ of the guess work out which allows you to have a better idea what the user will see and make sure that she sees the best looking and most easy to use site possible. Fluid sites hav
When people learn to change it (Score:3, Funny)
Even $*&%&* IT people who should know better don't change the default of 800x600, even if it's on a ^*%* high-end flat-screen that only looks good at 1280x1024.
And they ALWAYS leave it in 16-bit color.
This is at both of the IT jobs I've had.
What the %*&^ is up with that?
It's the tools (Score:4, Insightful)
The <a href="#" javascript="bla...."> stupidity, the "<table width=600" and suchlike fixed width items, all seem to be commonplace in code from things like Dreamweaver and such. Perhaps those programs can generate proper code, but it would seem the default settings don't (IANAWebDesigner).
If the companies that made the tools would just design the tools to generate proper HTML, that works on different resolutions and font sizes, that degrades gracefully when Javascript is turned off, and MAKE THAT THE DEFAULT SETTING, then a great deal of the problems would go away.
You should see my userContent.css file - it is full of overrides to prevent stupid web sites from using 400 pixel wide tables on my 1600 wide web browser.
I've worked with many UI designers - most of whom have the idea that they want to control everything to the pixel level. Then I take the mouse and attempt to resize their window. Either the window won't resize (they've blocked the message) or the window looks like crap. Designing ANY UI that will resize is HARD - you the designer have to convey to the program, somehow, that *this* item should grow, but *that* item should not. That is extra information that many lazy UI designers don't pass along - be they designing UIs for programs or for web sites.
Screen Resolution Browser Resolution (Score:2, Interesting)
Elastic Design renders this relatively unimportant (Score:2)
If you design your site utilising non-pixel based measurements (mm, pts or relative such as %) then they will scale to the appropriate size that best fits the resolution of the target browser and platform.
And before everyone starts going on about images not scaling, I would strongly recommend that you read alistapart [alistapart.com]'s article on Elastic Design [alistapart.com], and check out the Demonstration page [htmldog.com]. Resize the text and watch the whole site scale...
I run lynx (Score:2)
Standard for the aging (Score:2, Interesting)
My Websites + CSS (Score:3, Interesting)
The beautiful part of CSS is that it allows you to use mathematics to scale. If I want the font size to be proportional to the screen size (for example, 10px at 1024x768 - 8px on 800x600), I can just use something like: (Yes, I am aware that this will not work, but its just for example purposes only)
and it will scale accordingly.
When eye cloning becomes affordable and easy (Score:2)
*BAD* design practice (Score:3, Insightful)
A) Absolutely no horizontal scrolling required (this is the closest we got to designing to a resolution--this test was always done at 640x480 with a maximized browser window)
B) Never do any 'under construction' bullshit. If you don't have a page ready, don't link it.
C) Absolutely no flash, java, javascript, or other plugins. I REFUSE to use any sites that are completely flash-based.
D) Proper attention to contrasting colors, as well as keeping colorblindness in mind.
E) Don't specify fonts by name. Not everyone has, or can use, Avant Garde and Dingbats.
F) The page should render reasonably well under text-based browsers such as Lynx and links. It doesn't have to format perfectly (very, very difficult to pull off), but should at least be navigable, with all information visable.
G) Frames shouldn't be used.
H) Forcing a link to open in a new browser window should never be done. IF the user wants it in another window, or another tab, then let them make the choice.
I) Even though I say no Javascript, I'll re-iterate this one. If you design your site to open it's own new window, turn off the button bar, turn off the menus, resize itself, and/or disable right-clicking, go blow your brains out NOW and do the rest of us a favor. Right now. Do not pass go, and please make sure you use hollow-points.
J) The page should render correctly under, minimum, Explorer 3+, Netscape 3+, Opera, Konqueror, Mozilla/Firefox/Galeon, and any other web browser you can get your hands on. It won't always render identically, no matter what you do--but should remain usable, as properly formatted as possible, and fully navigable and visable.
All of the above issues are turning the Web into a mish-mash of unreadable, un-navigable garbage. If enough people refuse to stay on badly designed sites, the sites will die. Eventually, practices will change--hopefully.
Sorry, but you're insane. (Score:4, Interesting)
Javascript is not a bad thing at all, but clearly is often used in bad ways. But you don't advocate taking guns away from the police just because they can be bad. It's useful for taking the strain off the server by doing client side validation.
Frames aren't always evil either. In fact, I use Squirrelmail most of the time - a very common PHP based IMAP webmail system, and the whole damn thing is in frames by default. I love it.
Many Slashdotters use Gmail now, and I'd like to point out that it's about 99% javascript based. Doesn't automatically make it bad, does it?
Opening a second window is OFTEN the preferred behavior. Sites that bring up massive search results - like an ebay type site, or an e-commerce site, or even a personals site like match.com, might prefer opening individual windows.
I can agree with some of what you say: no site should be fully plugin based, and that Flash, while cool, is contributing to the deterioration of the internet, and that horizontal scrolling is the work of the devil. But the rest of your points make you sound too much like a propagandized Slashdot standards fanboy who is hip to the latest trends of XML.
Maybe when pages get designed properly... (Score:2)
Your pages should scale! (Score:3, Informative)
Make your page scalable, and you'll have a winner.
[Not so] Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions (Score:4, Informative)
A: Hopefully, never. Actually, optimistically speaking, web designers will realize that they shouldn't even be aiming for or requiring a graphical resolution as not everyone uses a graphical browser.
Helpful links:
People who say "best viewed at/with" obviously don't get the web.
Re:ERrr wait.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:ERrr wait.. (Score:2)
Re:Say it with me, folks (Score:2)
Where it excels is that is groups information blocks and, if left to its own devices, will allow its content to be rendered in a sensible, if not pretty format.
What has happened is that JavaScript, CSS etc has taken that simple and 'pure' form and allowed some to corrupt it by allowing people to try and turn it into another form of PDF
If you want a pure mark
Re:Say it with me, folks (Score:2)
Not even in jest!!!
I have actually seen people trying to do this.