How Wide Should the Page Be? - Page 5
May 4, 2001
The most frequently asked question in all my web seminars is
"What width screen should I design for?" People usually want to
know whether 640 pixels or 800 pixels is the goal. My standard
answer is that you shouldn't design for any standard width; it is
far better to create page layouts that will work across a range
of window sizes. Not only do users have varying monitor sizes set
to a variety of resolutions, but they may not always have their
windows maximized to take up the entire screen.
Those users who have small screens should not be required to
scroll horizontally to use your home page (vertical scrolling is
bad enough), and users who have large screens should be allowed
to benefit from their investment. Even so, many home page designs
do take up a specific size, and if you choose this approach, you
are advised to stay under 600 pixels in width unless you are
designing for an intranet where the users are known to have large
monitors. The use of 600 pixels instead of 640 is important
because on all screens, several pixels are gobbled up by the
browser's window borders -- the page content, therefore, cannot use
the full width of the monitor.
Home Page Width
During the first years of the Web, home pages tended to get
bigger and bigger as designers threw in options and used evermore
bloated graphics. At various times, I surveyed the early Web
and calculated the average width of the home pages I found:
- April 1995: 525 pixels
- January 1996: 568 pixels
- August 1996: 598 pixels
- May 1997: 586 pixels
In 1998 and 1999, some home pages ballooned to 775 pixels (to fit
an 800-pixel monitor), but most stayed at 600 pixels.
It is now rare to see narrow home pages (say, 300 pixels wide),
although some sites use "liquid" designs that don't have any
specific width. In principle, it is best to design this type of
resolution-independent home page, which can adapt to various
screen sizes. If this is not possible, then the standard advice
is to assume that many users will still be using 640 pixels for
several years to come.
Newsweek attempts to satisfy both common screen sizes with
this home page: At 800 pixels wide, you see everything (as
depicted here), and at 640, you still see the main part of the
page and only miss the rightmost column with secondary news. Even
the page logo is designed to work at both screen sizes. This is
admittedly a clever design, but I ultimately recommend against
this approach. Users with 640-pixel screens will want to know
what they are missing and will often be forced into horizontal
scrollingÑ one of the most hated interaction techniques in a web
browser. Also, users with any other size screen will be in
trouble, for example, when using WebTV (smaller than 640) or when
using a big PC monitor with several windows that are sized to,
say, a width of 700 pixels (which would cut right down the middle
of the rightmost column of this home page).
The Home Page: Further Examples - Page 4
Designing Web Usability
Splash Screens Must Die - Page 6
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