Not fixed width, max width. There's a difference. You can have min widths as well. It's not either or.
Full width is just as much of a copout, it is no more difficult to simply expand the content section of a page than to make everything fixed width. That's not being smart or creative, that's using a feature just because it's there (also common with wii developers). When layout is ALL css it's as easy switching from fixed to max with as changing one line of code.I'm all for full width if the designer does something good with it, like create columns of text or search results when you expand not just make the descriptions hard to read. Or actually moving widgets and menus around the screen and not just moving them linearly. I am not that courageous or talented and neither is google or amazon. But until browsers are all standards compliant no one really can be and have billions of users using dozens of browsers. Dealing with tiny minimum widths is what is difficult (and would cause problems with our website menu, which is why we have a minimum width as well) and notice that amazon DOES have a minimum width. I have found google to create frustrating user experiences at times, and at other times quite wonderful ones. I do find amazon frustrating to use on a large widescreen monitor. Do I want to have to move my mouse that far to click search? (well, I should be hitting enter...). > .... also, I think you are mistaken in believing that a > website could possibly set how many characters per line a > browser shows. True, but using em measurements (the width of an M at the current font and size) instead of px can get you in a close enough range in 99% of the cases. Thank you for your sympathy (any web designer needs it), but please allow me my opinion on full width pages. Your opinion is just as valid and I do appreciate it. This is something I have put much thought into and I believe using a combination of fluid width with maximum and minimums is the best solution for single column pages and have chosen this design instead of fixed width or completely fluid width. As webpagesthatsuck.com will tell you in its list of no-nos for web design: -Our site uses liquid design. -Our site uses fixed-width design. (You can't win. Liquid is wrong on wide-screen monitors because you have line lengths that are hard to read — and vice versa.) you just can't win ;). but if you want the objectivity behind my decisions please read: http://www.humanfactors.com/downloads/feb03.asp I find it interesting that this study notes kids prefer ~45 characters per line and then web 2.0 sites popular with kids (myspace (shudder), facebook, blog templates etc) all have extremely short fixed-length line lengths for their content columns. best, Devon --- On Fri, 7/31/09, Brian Fisher <br...@hamsterrepublic.com> wrote: > From: Brian Fisher <br...@hamsterrepublic.com> > Subject: Re: [pygame] how to remove spam comments in pygame wiki > To: pygame-users@seul.org > Date: Friday, July 31, 2009, 4:48 PM > It makes me sad to hear a web designer > say that :( > > I do respect how difficult and limiting designing for full > horizontal scaling can be, but quite frankly the web is > simply better full width. Also, I think to imply that > usability "suffers" for all non-fixed width > designs is an obviously wrong statement, and in my opinion, > just a cop out. In my experience, google & amazon made > the right choice letting the content grow horizontally. Do > you find their pages to have poor readability and usability? > Cause if you do, the objective formalized testing with real > customers those companies have done disagrees with your > opinion. > > > .... also, I think you are mistaken in believing that a > website could possibly set how many characters per line a > browser shows. > > All that being said, I'm terribly sympathetic with how > hard the web design stuff can be as your testing matrix of > browsers and window widths explode, and I'd never judge > somebody for sticking with fixed width restrictions for that > reason. Just please don't claim it's > "better" for the user. :) > > > > On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 2:10 PM, > Devon Scott-Tunkin <djvonfun...@yahoo.com> > wrote: > > > > As the designer of the new site I'm against that idea > on principle. > > > > I really hate using pages with no max width on widescreen > monitors as it forces me to resize my window to read the > pages. Readability and usability suffer with expanding > width pages after a certain width, which is why I like > having max widths. I don't think any readability is > gained by having more than 80-100 characters per line, and > that readability and usability is actually hindered. I > could probably increase the max width slightly, but I do not > want it over 100 characters for the main page column, it is > at 80 something now I believe. > > > > > Devon > > > > --- On Thu, 7/30/09, Greg Ewing <greg.ew...@canterbury.ac.nz> > wrote: > > > > > From: Greg Ewing <greg.ew...@canterbury.ac.nz> > > > Subject: Re: [pygame] how to remove spam comments in > pygame wiki > > > To: pygame-users@seul.org > > > Date: Thursday, July 30, 2009, 8:01 PM > > > Ian Mallett wrote: > > > > > > > It's harder to read because the page is > narrower. > > > > > > I would say don't try to control the page width > at > > > all. Let it flow to whatever size the browser window > > > is. > > > > > > -- Greg > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >
