11.30.06
How wide is your web site? How wide should it be?
This question comes up time to time from customers, and it also comes up in our office when we are training a new developer or when we are beginning a new web site. Years ago, it would have been downright irresponsible to build a web site larger than 800 pixels wide, because there were users with 13″ and 15″ monitors (yes, I have been around that long). Today, a web user could have a 24″ monitor or larger, and when you view a web site that is narrow, it seems like an awful waste of space to see the background image or colors taking up so much useful real estate. Since the height of a web page can be larger than the window due to scrolling, the WIDTH is really the important thing web developers have to consider.
A note about screen resolution
This is important because two visitors could have the same resolution, but different sized screens. Older visitors might have a 24″ monitor, but have it set to 1024 x 178 pixels. I use two 24″ monitors, and I have them each set to 1920 x 1200. This makes text really small and hard to see, but it is the native resolution for those monitors. “Native resolution” meaning that the picture and the text is razor sharp at that resolutions, because it is pixel-perfect for height and width. Any resolution lower than that would blow up the screen fonts, but it would also get a bit blurry. I also like the high resolution for me personally because I can use the extra screen real estate to spread out my windows. Having two of these hi res screens lets me have email and messaging on one screen, and my current work on my other screen. If you can afford it and your video card supports it (many do now), I recommend trying two screens. Once you have two, you won’t go back. OK, back to screen width for web design….
What size to use?
When I visit client sites, 21″+ monitors are now quite normal. Law offices, business offices, and doctor offices all have large monitors. They have come down in price quite a bit, so this could lead a web developer to assume that 1280 x 1024 would be the next logical step for web site size. But they would be wrong. Even though most machines can now EASILY handle 1280 x 1024 resolution, it is alarming to see what resolutions are being run. How can you tell what people are running? Google Analytics and other traffic reporting tools now capture some of this data from the visitor’s web browser, so that you can see trends as far as what people are using for resolution on their monitors.
Check out this image from an a traffic report on a busy web site:
The second bar is really the most alarming. 1/5 of all web users looking at this web site are actually STILL RUNNING at 800 pixels wide. What are they thinking? MOST web sites will not look right at that resolution. The correct width for a web site design in late 2006 is now obvious - it is 1024 x 768. Meaning, you should be designing for 990-1000 pixels in width. Why not the full 1024? Scrollbars and other browser settings that might affect the width of your site. There are free tools on the web, like the iconico calipers application that let you measure the size of on-screen elements. Web designers and business owners should make sure that their web site’s aren’t too wide, and aren’t too narrow so that most customers can easily view them, and so that you have enough screen real estate to prevent scrolling. An annoyingly narrow, wide, or scrolling web site will definitely cut into your sales.
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