Fixed Width design?

Just wondering what everyone's thoughts are on this. Someone in the CSS
newsgroup said that fixed-width design is bad. But it certainly seems to be
done a lot.

So, is fixed-width bad? Good? Indifferent? What are your thoughts?

--
Tony Garcia
Web Right! Development
Riverside, CA
www.WebRightDevelopment.com

Tony wrote

> Just wondering what everyone's thoughts are on this. Someone in the
> CSS newsgroup said that fixed-width design is bad. But it certainly
> seems to be done a lot.
>
> So, is fixed-width bad? Good? Indifferent? What are your thoughts?

My first thought is that being done a lot means nothing. Plenty of bad
stuff is done a lot.

The issue with fixed width is that it might not view correctly on small
screens, like PDAs.

On the other hand, a fixed width can be easier to read than lines going
all the way across the screen.

--
Charles Sweeney
http://CharlesSweeney.com

Charles Sweeney wrote:

> On the other hand, a fixed width can be easier to read than lines going
> all the way across the screen.

Not so well as a font size relative width, or a max-width (with whatever
JavaScript whatsits are required to fake support for that in IE).


--
David Dorward <http://blog.dorward.me.uk/> <http://dorward.me.uk/>
Home is where the ~/.bashrc is

David Dorward wrote

> max-width

That's handy. Is that a CSS thing? If so, I really must start getting
into it!

--
Charles Sweeney
http://CharlesSweeney.com

It can also be used to format a page more in the manner of a book. How many
books do you open to find the text whizzing across as you open the book
further?

Cascading Style Sheets can place illustrations accurately, text lines can be
formatted to match these illustrations thus creating the appearance you
want.

Pages that seem OK to those who write them, and who want to cover all
resolutions of screens, are a total pain to Mr/Mrs Average - who
co-incidentally is the guy/guyess you actually want on your website - again
and again and again. As are Shockwave movies used to replace a sensible
logo, which just take bandwidth for those on dial-up - not T1

In the world of technophobes - and computer semi-literati - squidgy screens
and interminable waiting mean "Let's ook at another site"

THEY - (our customers!) - are comfortable with a fixed width and fast
loading.

Although many times the work, if you REALLY want to provide all resolutions
you can use a simple javascript to direct people to 640x480 or 800x600 or
1024x768 or 1280x1024 whatever and make a matching number of pages. BIG work
.... BIG storage ... BIG hosting charge, maybe

It is better to research your most important market countries and find the
most popular resolution in those country then design around that.

Chris Burkill wrote:
<...>
> Pages that seem OK to those who write them, and who want to cover all
> resolutions of screens, are a total pain to Mr/Mrs Average - who
> co-incidentally is the guy/guyess you actually want on your website -
> again and again and again.

Which, ultimately, is what it all boils down to: What is the opinion of the
AVERAGE user of the site.

I brought up the discussion because I see most "experts" saying fixed-width
design is bad, that you should allow for varying screen sizes. But frankly,
I never hear that from the end-user.

> As are Shockwave movies used to replace a
> sensible logo, which just take bandwidth for those on dial-up - not T1

Especially when those movies don't have an alternate for those without the
plugin.

--
Tony Garcia
Web Right! Development
Riverside, CA
www.WebRightDevelopment.com

Tony tony23.no@dslextreme.com.spam wrote in
<11dt4qso9reqia4@corp.supernews.com>:
> Chris Burkill wrote:
> <...>
> > Pages that seem OK to those who write them, and who want to cover all
> > resolutions of screens, are a total pain to Mr/Mrs Average - who
> > co-incidentally is the guy/guyess you actually want on your website -
> > again and again and again.
>
> Which, ultimately, is what it all boils down to: What is the opinion of the
> AVERAGE user of the site.
>
> I brought up the discussion because I see most "experts" saying fixed-width
> design is bad, that you should allow for varying screen sizes. But frankly,
> I never hear that from the end-user.
>

Of course you don't. What you need to ask the end user is whether the site
is convenient to use on their system, they are only concerned about that.
In order to get a proper idea of how effective it is you need to do a
proper survey of a ranger of users with different systems, sampling only
the people who actually use the site means that you won't get the opinion
of the people who found it inconvenient.

--
eric
www.ericjarvis.co.uk
"live fast, die only if strictly necessary"