Discussion
We are able to get bigger and bigger monitors or even have two or three monitors linked together but there sem to be an awful lot of websites that just use the middle 1/3rd of the screen.
Why is this... Is it just a fad designers are going through or is there a reason.. cant understand it myself, to me its like producing a book and only filling the middle third of it??
BB
Why is this... Is it just a fad designers are going through or is there a reason.. cant understand it myself, to me its like producing a book and only filling the middle third of it??
BB
Ballistic Banana said:Because not everybody has big or daisy-chained monitors.
We are able to get bigger and bigger monitors or even have two or three monitors linked together but there sem to be an awful lot of websites that just use the middle 1/3rd of the screen.
Why is this... Is it just a fad designers are going through or is there a reason.. cant understand it myself, to me its like producing a book and only filling the middle third of it??
You'd be surprised at the number of PCs still running dinosaur-spec screens, and web developers have to, for the most part, cater for the lowest common denominator.
scorp said:It is layout dependent though. Some layouts just don't mend themselves to scaling.
Its not impossible to design a website that automatically scales/fits to any size browser. Its laziness on the web designers part.
Scaling is generally pretty fine for pages with defined vertical geometry, distinct columns and not too much critical positioning.
For pure information delivery, scaling isn't a problem. The issues start when a certain look is needed and the site is stylised. In many cases, scaling a page horizontally would screw up the intended proportions and destroy the visual impact.
And these days, style and presentation is as important as substance. Or at least I feel that way anyway, and all my clients and testers pay me to feel that way.
As always, it's laziness or incompetence of the developers, or short sighted cost cutting by managers / budget setters.
There is nothing stopping you designing a site that tailors its content to the capabilities of the device used to access it. Try using Google or BBC news on a Palm (like my Treo 650) for example - the site will automatically downsize the fluff and give just the content.
Unfortunately it's not as easy for a web site to detect what size screen (and how many) the client has... so web designers tend to target as many commonly used screens as possible.
Interestingly enough, I still run into web sites that assume > 1024x768 resolution... not a problem in the office where I have massive Apple widescreens, but here in the pub on my Powerbook 12" (only 1024x768) the website is a bloody pain in the arse.
This issue won't go away yet - home machines are getting steadily better monitors, but 'properly' portable laptops will still have lower resolutions. A 12 inch laptop with a 1600x1200 screen is a complete waste of time until the operating system and apps are completely resolution-independent. The next Apple OS X may get there, the new Windows won't (initially) and all current OSes can't do it properly.
There is nothing stopping you designing a site that tailors its content to the capabilities of the device used to access it. Try using Google or BBC news on a Palm (like my Treo 650) for example - the site will automatically downsize the fluff and give just the content.
Unfortunately it's not as easy for a web site to detect what size screen (and how many) the client has... so web designers tend to target as many commonly used screens as possible.
Interestingly enough, I still run into web sites that assume > 1024x768 resolution... not a problem in the office where I have massive Apple widescreens, but here in the pub on my Powerbook 12" (only 1024x768) the website is a bloody pain in the arse.
This issue won't go away yet - home machines are getting steadily better monitors, but 'properly' portable laptops will still have lower resolutions. A 12 inch laptop with a 1600x1200 screen is a complete waste of time until the operating system and apps are completely resolution-independent. The next Apple OS X may get there, the new Windows won't (initially) and all current OSes can't do it properly.
scorp said:
Its not impossible to design a website that automatically scales/fits to any size browser. Its laziness on the web designers part.
It's all well and good scaling up the site to fit a bigger window, but it only works if there is enough CONTENT to fill up the space. Otherwise you end up with tons of white space and the design is spoiled.
Also, it's easier on the eye to read fairly narrow columns of text. If the text streches out horizontally, it becomes more difficult to read.
Anyway, the beauty of large / multiple screens and hi-res is that you can use Windows the way it was intended - it's not mandatory to maximise everything!
Ballistic Banana said:
I understand that everyone may not have large screens so why not design at 600 x 800(even though I dont believe a high % use that size now?? ) or is that what these sites with just a bit down the middle are?
BB
Yep, that's what they are. You also have to take into account the window frame and title bar, menu bar, toolbar, any extras like Google toolbar, the bottom status bar, and the horizontal and vertical scrollbars.
2 Smokin Barrels said:Technically speaking, it's because the data is already there. When you get a PC with a 300GB hard drive you actually have a full 300GB of space being used. Your PC just needs to convert it to something you recognise.
When your pc gets more data in it, why doesn't it get heavier?
Yes, yes, coat, parrot etc.
miniman said:
As always, it's laziness or incompetence of the developers, or short sighted cost cutting by managers / budget setters.
Rubbish. 99 times out of 100, it's the MD who demands it done "his way" that spoil websites.
Rubbish. So 99% of corporate websites have their layout designed by the MD???
IMO the attitude that 'only 8% of users have this functionality, so
'em' is laziness. If the developers insist that they can deliver this, and the managers say 'bollox it'll bust the budget' then it's their fault. Without wanting to appear too aggressive, I'm assuming here you're talking about small businesses where the MD is involved in system design decisions. This isn't the case in general and to be honest, signing off the look & feel of a corporate design is different to the scalable implementation of said design.
miniman said:
It's all well and good scaling up the site to fit a bigger window, but it only works if there is enough CONTENT to fill up the space. Otherwise you end up with tons of white space and the design is spoiled.
Browsers come in a near infinite numbers of dimensions because you can resize the windows, so people designing websites for fixed resolutions seem a bit lazy to me.
With the above fact in mind, it baffles me as to why a designer thinks it's a good idea to design a web page at a fixed resolution.
scorp said:Fact: Most people run at 1024x768 or below.
Browsers come in a near infinite numbers of dimensions because you can resize the windows, so people designing websites for fixed resolutions seem a bit lazy to me.
With the above fact in mind, it baffles me as to why a designer thinks it's a good idea to design a web page at a fixed resolution.
Fact: These people surf with a maximised browser window most of the time.
Also, it is totally impractical to tell a user to resize his or her window to a certain size in order to view your web site properly. It also goes against every rule in the usability and ergonomics book to automatically resize their windows for them.
I don't know whether you're a designer yourself, but it's got nothing to do with us being lazy (most of the itme anyway. Sometimes we are budget-limited and hence are compromised in how much time we can spend on a site); it's all about appealing to be lowest common denominator and making the site accessible to at least 95% of the browsing public, without compromising too much across the board on user inconvinience and visual impact.
It's as simple as that.
There's been an awful lot of rubbish spouted on this thread 
I've been designing websites for 10 years and in some ways it hasn't gotten any easier.
There are very good reasons for designing to a fixed size. A lot of business are still running steam powered PCs and any website that wants to attract their business has to keep this in mind. For the most part, I still design to 800 x 600 and as frustrating as this is I'll keep doing it until the vast majority of business users are using higher resolutions.
Another reason not to use scalable content areas: optimum line lengths. I was trained as a traditional designer and it seems to me some of the fundamental principles of good design are being abandoned in the digital age, presumably because they are no longer 'cool' or something - the triumph of style over content... (showing my age here
). If you have a large block of text and you then stretch it to fit a 1600 pixel wide screen it's going to be very hard to read. There is an optimum line length - about 20 words I think - and above that the eye finds it difficult to follow and starts skipping onto lines above or below. And seeing as this is all supposed to be about communication that's really not a good idea... 
I've been designing websites for 10 years and in some ways it hasn't gotten any easier.
There are very good reasons for designing to a fixed size. A lot of business are still running steam powered PCs and any website that wants to attract their business has to keep this in mind. For the most part, I still design to 800 x 600 and as frustrating as this is I'll keep doing it until the vast majority of business users are using higher resolutions.
Another reason not to use scalable content areas: optimum line lengths. I was trained as a traditional designer and it seems to me some of the fundamental principles of good design are being abandoned in the digital age, presumably because they are no longer 'cool' or something - the triumph of style over content... (showing my age here
). If you have a large block of text and you then stretch it to fit a 1600 pixel wide screen it's going to be very hard to read. There is an optimum line length - about 20 words I think - and above that the eye finds it difficult to follow and starts skipping onto lines above or below. And seeing as this is all supposed to be about communication that's really not a good idea... Gassing Station | The Pie & Piston Archive | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff