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Don Farr
07-22-2004, 9:53 AM
I am currently working with a website designer on a new company website. He is telling me that the site should be set up at 1024 x 768 resolution. It seems to me that it should look GOOD at what ever resolution it is viewed at. I run 800 x 600 on my office computer but I run the higher on my larger home computer. One it looks good on and one it doesn't. Am I all wet here or is he?
Totally confused :confused:
Don

Keith Outten
07-22-2004, 10:34 AM
Don,

At HRO we have done a lot of web design over the last nine years and I remember that it seemed to take forever before web sites moved from 640 by 480 design to 800 by 600. You have to make a choice whether to be in front of the curve or stick with the average design. Aaron Koehl will most likely jump into this topic and offer some professional advice as to what the current state of the art is and if there is a high-end option that you could consider however the price might be deal buster :)

From my point of view and in my travels I am still seeing the majority of people using 17" monitors and lower level video cards. As inexpensive as RAM has been for the last few years I still see machines with a pitiful amount of RAM installed. We used to take all of this into consideration when designing web sites and I guess they still do but I have been away from the business for some time now. Believe it or not the majority of Internet Users are still using dial-up connectivity so page loading time is still a major consideration if you want to connect to the masses. If you are building a web site and your major audience is businesses then that would be a primary consideration affecting your design decisions.

Let's see what the man from UVA has to say :)

Jamie Buxton
07-22-2004, 1:41 PM
If he's talking about hardwiring the page width to be 1024 pixels, that's not good. It would mean that all the people with a smaller monitor would have to scroll left and right to see the whole page. However, if he's talking about making his design choices so that it looks best at one size, but is still all visible at some other size, that is okay. Most web pages I read are designed like that.

While we're talking about supporting your entire audience, remember to look at his work with browsers other than Internet Explorer, and on platforms other than PC.

Aaron Koehl
07-22-2004, 5:18 PM
Don,

To appeal to the majority, I stick with 700x500 to 800x600 for actual graphical content. Text content will automatically wrap. (This sometimes allows roughly 100 pixels for a search bar, scroll bar, etc. that many people have). Also, many people don't run their browser windows maximized (to full screen).

The trade-off is that people using higher resolutions (> 800x600) will have a lot of white space, or the perception that the website doesn't "fit" right within the browser. If you have a flash movie, _never_ go beyond 800 pixels wide (unless it's purely scalable vector shapes, which few are.) People can't scroll and still see animations.

From a design standpoint, this is where we resort to a few TABLE tricks. If you go to www.hroads.net (http://www.hroads.net), you'll notice that the content doesn't go any wider than 700 pixels. (FYI, This site was designed with our dial-up customers in mind). Using a couple of tricks, however, you'll notice that the top header extends infinitely to the right, and is "collapsible" down to 700 pixels before a horizontal scrollbar appears. (The table is sliced up, and a blank table column is made, with the background set to the image you want "repeated"). This, for a few years, wasn't cross-browser compatible, but it works in all version 4.0+ browsers.

I went to 710 pixels wide on this one: www.hamptonchevy.com (http://www.hamptonchevy.com),
and I went to 760 pixels on this one: www.hutchenschevrolet.com (http://www.hutchenschevrolet.com).

Here is a standard 800x600 "block" (non-collapsible) style design: www.animaljungle.com (http://www.animaljungle.com). See how it doesn't scale very well. I don't do it like this anymore.

Again, here is a similar "block" style design, designed at 700x500. Again, I dropped this style in favor of the left-aligned table styles that "stretch" across the screen: www.criner.net (http://www.criner.net).

Hmm.. these are getting old. Time for a redesign. ;) ;) :D

Truth be told, these all represent the old school of web design. Start with a graphic, slice it up into tables, make it into HTML. Today, we use CSS and other methods to achieve layout. Unfortunately, CSS (cascading style sheets) aren't quite up to par with cross-browser compatibility.

In summary, I wouldn't do 1024x768 unless you're building a site for an Intranet (internal network).

You wouldn't believe the number of people at SawmillCreek who run 800x600 and have pictures scroll off the screen.

Steven Wilson
07-22-2004, 5:27 PM
In summary, I wouldn't do 1024x768 unless you're building a site for an Intranet (internal network).


Aaron, I do a lot of work with corporate intranets (and extranets to our clients) and I wouldn't design over 800x600. I have dual monitors (21" and a laptop) but I also have 25 or more windows open at once; 800x600 is as big as I'll go. Also, I dislike having to move my hand from the keyboard to the mouse and back so I try to either make things sticky (towards the top and left) and avoid using the mouse to scroll.

Waymon Campbell
07-22-2004, 8:46 PM
Don,

If you look at www.echoecho.com you will see stats for internet surfers. Looking at the stats I would have to say that 800x600 would be the way to go. However, as others have said, strive to make the site dynamic for those running larger resolutions.

Jim Becker
07-22-2004, 10:16 PM
Although I've gotten almost entirely away from tables in page design by using CSS, I agree with Aaron's design ideas. I try to do pages that look good at approximately 800 pixels wide, but don't limit them to a specific size...any page components that are absolutely addressed stay "somewhere to the left" to avoid scrolling.

There have also been some interesting things I've read recently (could have been from Macromedia) about some quirks that make IE throw up scroll bars anyway, even though the actual content is narrower than the browser window, but I don't recall specifically "where" I was reading this at the time.

Don Farr
07-23-2004, 9:00 AM
Thanks for all the input everyone. It helped more than you know. Once again the "Creek" came through and I now can make an informed and intelligent decision.

Aaron Koehl
07-23-2004, 10:48 PM
Aaron, I do a lot of work with corporate intranets (and extranets to our clients) and I wouldn't design over 800x600. I have dual monitors (21" and a laptop) but I also have 25 or more windows open at once; 800x600 is as big as I'll go. Also, I dislike having to move my hand from the keyboard to the mouse and back so I try to either make things sticky (towards the top and left) and avoid using the mouse to scroll.
The intranet reference was to exemplify a narrow, controlled audience.
But again, I typically don't exceed 800x600.

Good comments everyone.