question about website design

[Newbie 0]

Hi - the designers for our new website have it optimised for a 1280x780 resolution. WHen looking at it at the resolutions we use (1024x768) you see 2 vertical "margins" on both the left and right of the main centre frame.

Is it possible for them to design this so that the display will look ok with any resolution? From my experience, it should be, but i'm not super experienced and if anyone can give any feedback, that would be excellent!

Thanks all!

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

[AggieDave 6]

Well, you can write ASP that will change the site on the fly...or if you don't want to spend hours programing.

Create the webpage you want, then put it in a table, make the cells that contain the webpage an exact pixel size, then let the rest of the table with %'s and neutral colors for your site. So no matter what size the screen is and what size the browser window is, you have a clean looking site.

Oh, most folks design for 1024x768 right now, not too many shops designing for above that yet, but almost no one is doing 800x600 anymore.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[Newbie 0]

wow quick reply, thanks Dave

PS i'm not designing it - it's been contracted out to a design company so i would have thought this was something that they would have done from the get go. The fact that the initial draft has come back (just the front page and menu options) looking like this has filled me with a certain amount of trepidation for what they are going to deliver.

So basically what you are saying is what i was thinking - that it is quite straightforward to design a page initially that will work well on any resolution whether that be 800x600, 1280x780 or 1024x768?

Thanks again

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

[AggieDave 6]

Sort of.

You design it to look good in one resolution, like 1024x768. Going smaller then that runs into issues, so the 800x600 crowd is out, they should update their hardware. But going larger then that (as a lot of people are now days) is pretty straight forward using tables. However, you end up with boarders around your site that way, but that's the commonly accepted "easy" solution. The other fixes take longer to code and will cost you more for a very similar looking and functioning site.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[sid 1]

Dave - I just finished a site for someone and optimized it for 1024*768. We put a feedback form on the site and were inundated with people using 800*600 resolution bitching about the scrollbars.

Granted this site was aimed at a demographic likely to have older hardware/software configurations but I had to change the whole site, left justify it and leave a wide margin to the right.

Luckily, when I work on third party sites now I get everything in writing, so the client paid for the re-write, but OY! What a pain. You'll be suprised how many people still use 800 * 600

Pete Draper,

Just because my life plan is written on the back of a Hooter's Napkin, it's still a life plan.... right?

[AggieDave 6]

Quote

I just finished a site for someone and optimized it for 1024*768. We put a feedback form on the site and were inundated with people using 800*600 resolution bitching about the scrollbars.

Did you get their addresses so you can send out "upgrade your 10yr old shit" post cards or possibly beat them with the "upgrade stick" (which looks a lot like an axe handle)?

That's part of the reason I got out of web design, you can not make everyone happy, hell you're really really good if you make even a majority of the people happy. And I hated doing rewrites and revisions.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[Shotgun 1]

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You'll be suprised how many people still use 800 * 600

Yep... I have a site that I designed for 800x600 (because the person I was designing it for still uses that resolution)... I have decided recently that I need to change it to a non-fixed size (because it just looks ridiculous on my 1280x1024 screen), but I'm having a hard time with that - looks like I have to re-design the whole thing! Of course, that's my own fault - should have designed it to not be resolution-specific in the first place!

[sid 1]

you can always make the table 100% but the problem is if the site is loaded with graphics, and mine always seem to be, it can be very unpredictable how they present themselves. This one www.emcon2004-bombay.org didn't come out too bad, but most of the ones I do now, like www.thepinkmafia.com I cheat and left justify everything.

Pete Draper,

Just because my life plan is written on the back of a Hooter's Napkin, it's still a life plan.... right?

[flyingferret 0]

You know...dave, some people would say the same about people using anything non-IE based

In actuality a LOT of people still use 8x6. I cannot stand anything less than 10x7, but the majority of my office uses 8x6.

And I agree with you, web design like most of IT is a tradeoff. But in its case the tradeoff is a very visible one. I would rather not be involved anymore, and just hack html 3.0 in my text editor Personally what I hate way more than non-scalable sites, are the ones the freaking insist on stepping through pure flash windows like there is no tomorrow, click this to enter site, another window, popup filter, blah, oh, no back button? great navigation....yeah, thanks!

--
All the flaming and trolls of wreck dot with a pretty GUI.

[StevePhelps 0]

I still design a lot at 8X6 because that is what they want, but I've been adding stuff on the right so it will look okay with wider resolutions. Things like banners, addresses, coupons, and other "non essentials".

[WhirledWeb 0]

Yep, it's true... many many many still use 8x6 - in many cases, you just have to choose who you're going to have a battle with - the client with the wide screen monitor or their customer with the 800x600 resolution.

At our web shop, we try to make the designs site well on anything 800x600 and above. We can let design drool into the right gutter, but try to keep those graphics in the background - so we don't create horizontal scrollbars.

Sometimes the trick is to create the site in a centered table, and allow it to rest comfortably in the middle of whatever resolution you have with some neutral colors (like molalla communications' new site - in construction)

If you design the site to force the visitor to scroll left and right - you'll just end up pissin' them off, usually.

that's my $0.02

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Don't be afraid of death,
be afraid of the unlived life.

[narcimund 0]

Designing for 8x6 doesn't mean you're designing for 8x6 monitors. It means you're designing for a reasonably sized window. Just because someone has a huge monitor doesn't mean they want their web browser window to fill it side to side.

8x6 is an excellent, readable width. Don't break it. 750px wide is standard for a good reason. Even on large monitors.

For a good analogy, notice that even though newspapers are printed on large paper, the columns of text are narrow. Trust the designers. They know what they're doing.

First Class Citizen Twice Over

[AndyMan 7]

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Is it possible for them to design this so that the display will look ok with any resolution? From my experience, it should be, but i'm not super experienced and if anyone can give any feedback, that would be excellent!

Absolutely. Not only can any website be designed to be resolution agnostic (within reason), every website SHOULD be designed to be resolution agnostic.

As an example, look at www.slashdot.org. Without using any server-side magic, their website looks good in any resolution.

Compare and contrast that to www.chicagotribune.com which only looks good if you happen to be setup the way THEY want you to.

A well designed website will look half decent in any resolution, without server-side magic.


_Am (former webmaster molson.com, littletikes.com, rubbermaid.com...)

__

You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[wee 0]

when forced into web design-i always use 800x600 because there is nothing worse than having to scroll both horizontally & vertically... plus you never know what kind of browser the user on the other end is using --- makes a huge difference. If they have a lot of cash flow, you can give the user the option and get paid double -Heids

If the world didn't suck, we'd all fall off!

[AndyMan 7]

I repeat, a properly designed website does not assume a user uses any specific browser or display resolution.

Any other answer is a hack.

_Am

__

You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[sangiro 4]

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I repeat, a properly designed website does not assume a user uses any specific browser or display resolution.

Any other answer is a hack.

That's a pretty bold and somewhat condescending statement. I don't agree with it. There are as many ways to design web sites as there are to ways to paint a painting.

All three the sites you listed that you were the webmaster of actually assumes a certain display resolution. Slashdot (your "good example") assumes a resolution of at least 800x600, which is why their banner ad is 729 in width. Ebay, Amazon, CNN, Yahoo, Google... all hacks by your definition.

There are simple realities to confront when you buiild a site and in the end it has much less to do with what you can do with the technology than it has with what the user experiences.

Build to meet the needs of as large an audience as possible. Except that it is virtually impossible to please everyone (there are just too many combinations) and that you actually have to make informed decisions and assumptions.

If assuming a certain screen resolution works for your user experience and the target audience for your site then go for it. Understand who your users are and listen to them.

Safe swoops
Sangiro

[AndyMan 7]

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That's a pretty bold and somewhat condescending statement. I don't agree with it.

That's odd, your website largely conforms to it. As far as I can tell, with only a few minor exceptions dz.com is almost entirely browser and display resolution agnostic. It's aparent that you've gone to pretty long lengths to make it so, too.

Quote

All three the sites you listed that you were the webmaster of actually assumes a certain display resolution. Slashdot (your "good example") assumes a resolution of at least 800x600, which is why their banner ad is 729 in width. Ebay, Amazon, CNN, Yahoo, Google... all hacks by your definition.

I disagree. Slashdot, Google all scale from less than 640*480 up to as far as my monitor will go, without leaving excessive whitespace. They even display reasonably well in text-only browsers like Lynx or my wap-enabled phone. Now I'll grant that those are exception.

As a side note, I used to hang out with "CmdrTaco" of Slashdot, and I know he'd be quite pleased if I accused his website of being a 'hack'.... But that's another issue.

The reality is that there's middle ground, and that middle ground is just as you say, it's smart to target your website to the largest possible audience. The path to the larges tpossible audience is not to pigeon-hole people into one specific group, but to come up with a model that works for the most people possible without leaving 80% of your real-estate as whitespace.

Large whitespace columns on the sides of webpages are anachronisms coming from people who learned page layout with print. The web isn't a fixed environment where you can control every aspect of the layout. Smart graphic designers understand this, and design to the medium.

It always has, and still is stupid to design your website to work properly at only one specific resolution, or with only one browser.

I'm not surprised that you're arguing the sharpness of my comment. I am surprised that you're arguing the meaning behind it, because its clear that you understand the issues well.

_Am

__

You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[sangiro 4]

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That's odd, your website largely conforms to it.

I know. That doesn't mean I agree with your statement that any site that does not work like DZ.com is a hack. That's a bit condescending.

Quote

I disagree. Slashdot, Google all scale from less than 640*480 up to as far as my monitor will go, without leaving excessive whitespace. They even display reasonably well in text-only browsers like Lynx or my wap-enabled phone. Now I'll grant that those are exception.

I think there's a difference between being able to scale or "degrade gracefully", and assuming any browser size.

Slashdot uses a banner that will give you a horizontal scrollbar if you go under 800*600 - they assume you have at least that size, regardless of how they scale and degrade. Ebay has a fixed table width on it's home page - it assumes that size. It may scale or degrade well. Amazon has a 3 table structure like DZ.com that "breaks" under 800*600. It assumes you have that resolution at the minimum, it scales well up.

Quote

I am surprised that you're arguing the meaning behind it, because its clear that you understand the issues well.

I do understand the issues very well. I just don't agree with a "this is the only way to do it right" approach. I think there are best practices but I also think design should follow your users, audience and subject matter... and unfortunately also your budget. Design should not follow either the low-end limitations or the high-end possibilities of your available technology just for the sake of doing so.

Just because the technology can do it doesn't mean you should. It's about the people.

Other than that I think we're basically in agreement.

Safe swoops
Sangiro

[AndyMan 7]

I don't care so much about if a horizontal scroll bar shows up, like on slashdot, but more if the website requires you to use that scrollbar. The scrollbar does pop up on slashdot only because of the banner, and the banner is effectively the only part of the screen to run off. All of the news articles, right and left menus are all intact, and don't require use of the scroll bar. On many reloads slashdot uses markup based ads instead of a banner, at which point that scrollbar dissapears.

640*480 is indeed an odd case, and is currently statistically insignificant. However many wap-enabled phones do use this resolution, and its unwise to create a website that is unusable by certain devices.

Many website owners counter by saying "well, our website isn't designed for wap-phones". This poses one big question.... "why not?" Do they think people with wap-phones don't want content? Brower equiped phones (and usage) are the growing at exponential rates.

If the online marketing industry would get away from using images as banners and use markup based ads, making a truely scalable device independ web would be a lot easier. They were making a lot of progress a few years ago, but that seemed to stall... I don't think its coincidence that Google AdSence uses markup based ads exclusively.

There are certainly obstacles to a complete device independence. That doesn't mean web designers shouldn't try. I'm not saying it has to be perfect, but rather it's really obvious (and lame!) when designers don't make any attempts at all, like the site that started this thread.

The biggest hurdle designers need to get over is the idea that a website is not print.

_Am

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You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[pilotdave 0]

I dunno about anyone else, but I almost never maximize a browser window. I don't like having to move my head to see a whole webpage. I run at 1280x1024, but my browser windows are a whole lot smaller than that.

I don't think much about designing for a specific minimum resolution. I design so my site looks alright on my screen when I get it about as small as I'll realistically use it. Everyone else can deal.

Actually on my site, my original plan was to work on functionality first then make it look good later. I'm between stages now.
Dave