On 2012/01/24 11:19 (GMT+0800) Ghodmode composed:
Felix Miata wrote:
...
Here are a few real-world examples of fixed width sites:
http://www.mashable.com 972px
http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/SC/sc-mashable2560-01.jpg
http://www.stackoverflow.com 960px
http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/SC/sc-stackoverflow2560-01.jpg
http://developers.whatwg.org/ 820px
http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/SC/sc-whatwgdevel2560-01.jpg
http://lifehacker.com/ 980px
http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/SC/sc-lifehacker2560-01.jpg
http://developer.yahoo.com/ 974px
http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/SC/sc-yahoodevel2560-01.jpg
http://paulirish.com 936px
http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/SC/sc-paulirish2560-01.jpg
On 2012/01/24 19:15 (GMT+0800)
I don't know about the original poster's target demographic, but 960px
works well on a modern computer or a modern mobile device....
Debatable...
I guess some of this stuff is a matter of opinion. In each of the
screenshots, you're saying that the site could make better use of the
horizontal space available, right?
That, among other things which should be evident, some from reading the
content, more from merely looking at perspective. Content links, for
convenience, included in those screenshots:
http://www.informationarchitects.jp/100e2r?v=4
http://www.w3.org/2003/07/30-font-size
http://bureau.tsailly.net/2010/10/honey-i-shrunk-the-pixels.html
Related ones not used there:
http://www.yourwinningresources.com/all-about-websites/The-Web-is-Not-Paper.htm
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/designmistakes.html
http://www.dev-archive.net/articles/font-analogy.html
Those and more are listed without comment on
http://fm.no-ip.com/Auth/refmarks.html
In my humble opinion, those sites make effective use of horizontal space
and presentation of their content. When more fits on the screen than
just the web site it's a good thing.
That's one school of thought. Some people use a bigger screen to fit more
stuff. That's you. Others use a bigger screen to make stuff bigger. That's
me. Many others fall somewhere in between those two basic schools, but most
designers seem to fit yours, and without demonstrating knowledge that any
other exists.
I'd make the browser window only big enough to show the site, then use
the rest of the space for other windows. But that's just me.
Many, but hardly all.
Consider also the general rule that content shouldn't exceed some
horizontal width. It often applies to coding practices and
communications mediums... even some mailing lists.
Relevant width is the key. When the width as measured in a designer's em that
is a fraction of the browser UI em, and a smaller fraction of the browser's
default em, the width is too narrow, as everything in that viewport is too small.
Maybe you need to define what you mean by "talented", "successful" and "look
great". Clearly here these sites don't make much of anything big enough to
evaluate, certainly providing little evidence of enough talent to both
understand and care about the impact of screen density on px layouts from
the perspective of non-designer web users. NAICT from here they all look
like they were designed for print.
Here's what I meant:
talented = I think that these people are smarter than me, with
regard to web d. They've had significant experience working on
high-visibility sites and/or they've made significant
contributions to the web d. community, earning my respect.
Or it could mean they're copycats, not a particularly meaningful talent.
successful = lots of visitors
How many actually stay more than a few seconds needs to count too. I hit a
lot of sites that are loaded only for as long as it takes to see how rude
they are and hit the back or close tab button to escape.
look great = pretty
Look great cannot be evaluated when everything is too small.
It doesn't seem like anything is holding back screen densities. I''m
a novice, but I keep hearing about retina and super amo oled plus and
4k HD displays. It seems like hardware capacity is out-pacing
software capacity.
Your first sentence and third sentence conflict. For the most part, pixel
densities _are_ being held back for lack of software support. For several
years, desktop displays had a fairly wide range of sizes for any given
resolution. More recently the range has been much narrower, with more
discrete resolutions available than previously, and depending on
manufacturer, a range of about 3" or less for each one up to the highest of
the high volume sizes (1920x1080).
Okay. I don't get it. This is clearly a topic that you understand
much better than I do.
Maybe a bit of study of http://fm.no-ip.com/PC/displays.html could be helpful
here. Compare it to http://fm.no-ip.com/PC/dpi.xhtml to see the latter is
older, and populated by a much smaller number of combinations, many of which
are no longer available to purchase except as new old stock or used. Even
though the former contains more possibles, few are readily, if at all,
available new. Most for desktop use vary little from 96 device px per inch,
because the DTEs poorly support anything else. Note too that excepting
special order, almost everything available new for the desktop is now 16:9
format.
If you're talking about the desktop environments, is it related to web
d.?
Web pages normally get loaded by visitors in web browsers. Fully capable web
browsers can't exist in a vacuum. They depend on a DTE for their existence.
The DTE provides a context. When web page content is all smaller than other
objects within the DTE, it misfits the context - it's out of place, typically
inconvenient at best, difficult or impossible to use at worst, depending on
the true competence actually employed by the designer.
Web browsers are inherently designed, like the rest of the DTE, to be
personalized at least to some extent, and to adapt content to the DTE
context. Typically, CSS serves not only to style, but also to inhibit or even
prohibit the adaptation that is a major advantage the web should have over
print. Because of the ways most stylists use CSS, typically that potential
advantage is neither realized nor realizable.
--
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)
Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!
Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/
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