I have been building web pages for over 6 years... and have been using a standard web page width of 778px for 800px monitors, unless the client requests otherwise. The concept is to avoid (left/right) scrolling and make a good user experience.
Most of the justification came from the analysis/tips in Jakob Nielson's book on "Homepage Usability" - dated in 2002. Most other articles I've read suggest this... but the trend is changing, as these monitors become fewer.
Floating widths are cool - and useful. But they take longer to develop and I only do those on request, at an extra fee. However, since my statistics show that less than 2% use 800 px monitors, I am about to change my policy...
But what width to use? Of course I will build for the 1024px monitors... the next size up. This is the largest percentage for screen resolutions now - about 34%. But I am considering only using 960px width for the regular content. That will allow for those who don't open their browser all the way. And it will allow the background colors/gradients to properly frame the page.
More info:
http://webdesign.about.com/od/webdesign/a/aa080904.htm
http://funbytebitstop.wordpress.com/2007/03/01/775-px-make-it-your-default-webpage-width/
http://www.jimdegerstrom.com/blog/2008/07/standard-web-design-page-width.html
Any thoughts?
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
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1 comments:
A standard page width of 960px still makes sense to me, Robert, and thanks for linking to my blog post on this subject. Your comment "...it will allow the background colors/gradients to properly frame the page" is another excellent point.
Taken another step, using an oversized background 1600px wide and having it centered while calculating the view for various size monitors can create some dramatic effects to please a broader audience, also.
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