Resolution change Web Page Contents Settings

K

Kris

You misunderstood my question. I asked not for examples of websites, I
asked for examples of content and their audience that 'require a fixed
layout'.

Those sites I mentioned are examples of both :)[/QUOTE]

Then you would not have any trouble naming what that content is and what
their audience is and how that justifies a fixed design.
Don't you get it, it's not just about content it's about Design with a big
D. Art, Design, Image, whatever you want to call it.

Oh, art. Oh no, Art. Oh well, excuse me then, lady artist. :)
By saying "don't fix
the size" is just as limiting as saying "all designs must be fixed".

If you design a chair, being able to sit in it is your first priority.
It's
about what you want to achieve; what image you want to present to your
audience.

I do not deny that. What fixed design has to do with that is what I
don't understand. I have rationale on my side. I am waiting for yours.
Sites could be either, but for some applications of design, fixed
width provides the time of image that is demanded by some end users.

What applications of design would that be?
And
when I say demanded, I mean "what they expect" rather than what they ask
for.

You reckon they were asked "do you expect a fixed layout or a flexible
one?"?
 
A

Adrian Wood

Kris said:
clients
(and

I would assume the design firms behind the large commercial sites have done
thier research. Putting that asside, it's to do with design, rather than
content.

Basically, all of this above unites to your only argument for a fixed
desig: "MTV, BBC, CNN and others do it too".[/QUOTE]

I don't see her argument as this; those pages were examples of what she
means. And by definition of her 'websites as a sales channel' argument, most
websites she could site would be the big ones, purely because big brands
with big arguments for style tend to be big sites. It's a chicken/egg
situation.
I don't see the connection. Can you elaborate? What is the correlation
between a fixed design and selling an image or product?

OK, let's put it like this.

From a scientific point of view, you often test theories by taking them to
extremes... so let's do that here. Any site, no matter what the content or
how designed, has a minimul usable browser resolution. (I know you don't
like to corelate screen resolution with browser size.) For example, even a
text-only unformatted page wouldn't survive going under about 10 pixels wide
without becoming absolutely unreadable, and would require at least 100
pixels width in order to actually read the page without significant effort.

The same comes into play with any kind of textual or visual content; there
is a minimum usable size inherent in using it. The same may come to play at
higher levels; with an extremely large layout, a flexibly-designed page may
wind up with content which is supposed to be together being spread out.
(Less of a problem, and probably solveable, but still.)

Splitting graphics into multiple parts so that they can lie one under the
other etc can help, but eventually you have a limit based on the width of an
individual part..

So from a technical aspect, every webpage has 1) An absolute minimum
viewable width (one where all content is visible and readable,) and 2) a
minimum coherent view (one where content flows as originally concieved.)

From this, it's only a small jump to what Spacegirl has been talking about;
many sites decide that they do not want to fall below the coherent view
threshold. Having the site be usable in some form regardless of browser
platform becomes secondary to having the site have a certain set style and
layout. Bare in mind that for many websites, the web designer may not have
final say in these things; the decision may come from a marketting team or
other area. They don't care about browser compatiblity or low resolutions,
they want dynamic visual sites even if you have to scroll to see all the
content, and sites without many graphics, or with graphics that fall under
each other, just don't make the cut.

If someone is making their own webpage for themselves, and the webpage is
the thing and the whole of the thing, then flexible layout should probably
be achieveable and desired; but when the content ties in with an existing
style, image, content or product, concessions may be forced upon the
designer which require forced sizing and placement to ensure the design fits
certain parameters.

Don't get me wrong, I don't agree with this (as a regular mobile internet
user who has a max resolution of 160x160,) but I can understand it. I doubt
a site that had graphics showing;

'Co
ca-
Co
la'

would be tolerated.

So in short; what Space girl is saying isn't that only Fixed layout sites
can look good, she's just saying that from the point of view of the creator,
sometimes the precise layout of the site is more important that whether the
user has to grab that horizontal scrollbar.

(And for the record, I must admit she chose bad examples to start with; BBC,
for example, offers low-graphic and text-only versions of much of their
site.)
Of course not.

Let's put it another way; it doesn't *have* to be, but to retain certain
elements from a style point of view it may be... desired.
I know of the 'limitations' that a flexible design seems to have
at first glance. I also know that most are unfounded.

Really? Make a 200 width graphic fit on a 100 width browser screen,
*without* breaking it's appearance. ;)
I agree that most designs found on the web are unfortunately a fixed
width. That is however not the same as "a good design must be fixed".

I agree. I prefer content-heavy websites with a clean layout, if only
because they tend to work better from my PDA.
 
K

Kris

I don't see the connection. Can you elaborate? What is the correlation
between a fixed design and selling an image or product?


image/brand (this argument is going to get circular lol). A web site is
another channel to sell, or market a product. The design would/should match
the brand. This could either be fixed or flexible (I dont like splitting
like this; even fixed designs are actually flexible, but that's a different
topic). If you are to make a site scale to the size of the page, it makes it
VERY hard to match offline design online (but then this depends again on the
product, yes?)[/QUOTE]

What if it were easier, would you do it then? I am willing to help.
(that's why I mixed myself in this discussion anyway)

It makes little sense to match the offline design 1 on 1. Now, that
isn't necessary either, you agree with me, right? Flexible design can do
as much to branding as a fixed design can (what a fixed design does to
branding is still not made clear by you though).

Then what? Start making sense girl.
Rather than easier, lets just go with "possible".

Because "reproducing a flexible design from a still image is
impossible", is that your final statement?
If that were the case, why aren't people doing it?

Mass hypnosis.
I've demonstrated lots of
sites. I'd love to see some from you. Find me a site that comes close to
www.mtv.co.uk that employs flexible layout, that can be happily read in a
300 x 300 window, without lossing branding.

300 x 300 is not the point. Don't add new, ridiculous variables to the
discussion. Let's just stick to a regular browser situation now, where
size can vary from 600 to 1200+ wide and will still do okay. Anything
less will be less okay, but still more okay than the examples that you
gave. If you want to talk about smallscreen browsers, like PDA, we'll
discuss that separately.

Here are some flexible designs with outstanding branding quality.
<http://www.inc.com/>
<http://www.quark.com/>
<http://www.eyrolles.com/>
<http://www.amazon.com/>

Or maybe the site everybody knows, despite or thanks to its brand,
<http://www.google.com/>

If you like to argue the amount of branding of these sites, please
mention so; i love to hear what amount of branding automatically leads
to the conclusion that a fixed design is needed.
Sure good example. The content is not flexible. Try shrinking it below 700
pixels. The page gets cropped.

I never argued that the site is as usable or as pretty on *any* size.
Try any of your examples on a size of less than they were designed for.
Try switching your browser to extra large
fonts. The content grows, but what about the menus?

Yeah, they could have done better on that. It has nothing to do with
designing flexible layouts though.
are you a designer? :eek:

Yes I am.
I agree it's bad practice for blocks of text; but when type is part of the
design (graphics)

How can you defend design as if it were the first and last line in the
Bible or something? Design is a *means*, not a goal. And no matter how
much branding you are prepared to throw into the battle, it will always
stay a means.

You are sounding like an artist who defends the meridity of her art on
its own merits.
how can you avoid it? Or do we place yet another limit on
design.

Oh no, let's not constrain the souls of those poor designers. Are you
sure you are in the right job?
No images with text at all.

I think, if you believe strongly that there is no place for "fixed width"
designs in the business,

Which is something I *never* said. I said that I believe there is a
place for them, but as a last resort after it is concluded that a
flexible design cannot do the job. I admit that that reasoning would
maifest itself by a huge presence of flexible designs online. The fact
however that that presence is not there is not an argument that I am
wrong, but merely an argument that most of the designers still have a
lot to learn.
then you are clearly in the wrong business as the
vast majority of commercial web sites already do this.

Of course. If you want to be successful, you need not ask question, just
do what others do.

For the last time, I ask you to give a solid argument as to why a fixed
design is justified on the sites that you so firmly hold to your
defense. And not "because they do".
Whereas I believe
there are viable uses for both fixed and flexible. Wouldn't it be better to
be a more open minded designer?

I am a very open minded designer. It is you who is yelling that a
commercial site requires a fixed layout.
The desktop, windows, browsers... it's all part of the desktop metaphor.

A bit more specific please.
There cant be many web sites you visit then :)

If I were the web's Taliban, then no. Luckily I am not. Many websites
frustrate me though.
Yep, but not without a possitive side.

A good flexible design does not have this trade-off.

I leave this last part quoted on purpose.
 
A

Adrian Wood

Kris said:
If you design a chair, being able to sit in it is your first priority.

Perhaps not; if you were designing something to sit in, you would probably
start with a chair, but there are other possible reasons (priorities)
someone might wind up creating a chair. It is all to do with intent, which
sadly is not always content.
 
K

Kris

I don't see the connection. Can you elaborate? What is the correlation
between a fixed design and selling an image or product?

OK, let's put it like this.

From a scientific point of view, you often test theories by taking them to
extremes... so let's do that here. Any site, no matter what the content or
how designed, has a minimul usable browser resolution. (I know you don't
like to corelate screen resolution with browser size.) For example, even a
text-only unformatted page wouldn't survive going under about 10 pixels wide
without becoming absolutely unreadable, and would require at least 100
pixels width in order to actually read the page without significant effort.

The same comes into play with any kind of textual or visual content; there
is a minimum usable size inherent in using it. The same may come to play at
higher levels; with an extremely large layout, a flexibly-designed page may
wind up with content which is supposed to be together being spread out.
(Less of a problem, and probably solveable, but still.)

Splitting graphics into multiple parts so that they can lie one under the
other etc can help, but eventually you have a limit based on the width of an
individual part..

So from a technical aspect, every webpage has 1) An absolute minimum
viewable width (one where all content is visible and readable,) and 2) a
minimum coherent view (one where content flows as originally concieved.)

From this, it's only a small jump to what Spacegirl has been talking about;
many sites decide that they do not want to fall below the coherent view
threshold.[/QUOTE]

A site with a fixed layout has only optimal effect on that exact window
width. A flexible layout will have that on that width too, and on
smaller and higher sizes. Of course to a certain extend, but even then,
a well-crafted site degrades to a less pretty but still usable layout.
This is a win-win situation. Unfortunately, few people acknowledge this,
but there is little argumentation from that camp.
Having the site be usable in some form regardless of browser
platform becomes secondary to having the site have a certain set style and
layout.

The same reasoning behind building separate sites for different window
sizes, different web browsers, different bandwidths, etcetera.

Note though, a lot of contrast added, my approach is on the opposite
side of the spectrum; I argue from a user perspective, while SpaceGirl
clearly argues from the corporate perspective.
Bare in mind that for many websites, the web designer may not have
final say in these things; the decision may come from a marketting team or
other area. They don't care about browser compatiblity or low resolutions,
they want dynamic visual sites even if you have to scroll to see all the
content, and sites without many graphics, or with graphics that fall under
each other, just don't make the cut.

I am not arguing the chain of decisionmaking. Actually, it is likely
that the design of the sites SpaceGirl mentioned were not decided on by
designers at all. What we are discussing however, is what to do when a
designer does have the chance to make the decision. She favors fixed
layout for reasons IMO insufficiently explained.
If someone is making their own webpage for themselves, and the webpage is
the thing and the whole of the thing, then flexible layout should probably
be achieveable and desired; but when the content ties in with an existing
style, image, content or product, concessions may be forced upon the
designer which require forced sizing and placement to ensure the design fits
certain parameters.

My opinion is that this conclusion is reached too early on today's web.
I don't believe at all that the designers of all the site that SpaceGirl
mentioned had to go through the phase of balancing the pros and cons; it
is much more likely that they reasoned like SpaceGirl does: "CNN and BBC
are doing it, so must we."
Don't get me wrong, I don't agree with this (as a regular mobile internet
user who has a max resolution of 160x160,) but I can understand it. I doubt
a site that had graphics showing;

'Co
ca-
Co
la'

would be tolerated.

Why would it need to show that?
So in short; what Space girl is saying isn't that only Fixed layout sites
can look good, she's just saying that from the point of view of the creator,
sometimes the precise layout of the site is more important that whether the
user has to grab that horizontal scrollbar.

The argument between the designer who thinks from the perspective of
those who has to use his work and the designer who is more of an artist
than a designer.
(And for the record, I must admit she chose bad examples to start with; BBC,
for example, offers low-graphic and text-only versions of much of their
site.)

Let's save that for another discussion. :)
Let's put it another way; it doesn't *have* to be, but to retain certain
elements from a style point of view it may be... desired.

I am not defending a black-and-white view. I understand that certain
aspects of a design are desired. Respecting that and finding the balance
between that and user centered aspects is what makes for a good website,
in my opinion.
Really? Make a 200 width graphic fit on a 100 width browser screen,
*without* breaking it's appearance. ;)

Thanks for supplying the smiley. I am sure we agree on the nature of
certain content, like bitmap graphics, that is not flexible at all.
Image scaling in browsers is however gaining momentum. If your
smallscreen browser does not scale image above a certain size yet, then
you would surely switch someday soon.

A desktop browser screen of 100 pixels wide on the other hand, makes no
sense. That does not do any good to any design, fixed or flexible, so
let's not even add that to the equation.
I agree. I prefer content-heavy websites with a clean layout, if only
because they tend to work better from my PDA.

Glad to hear at least someone agrees. :)
 
K

Kris

Adrian Wood said:
Perhaps not; if you were designing something to sit in, you would probably
start with a chair, but there are other possible reasons (priorities)
someone might wind up creating a chair.

I am arguing starting out with creating a chair, not ending up with it.
It is all to do with intent, which
sadly is not always content.

Sadly indeed.
 
B

Barry Pearson

SpaceGirl said:
[snip]
I think, if you believe strongly that there is no place for "fixed
width" designs in the business, then you are clearly in the wrong
business as the vast majority of commercial web sites already do
this. Whereas I believe there are viable uses for both fixed and
flexible. Wouldn't it be better to be a more open minded designer?
[snip]

These decisions need to be judged by their consequences in the marketplace.
Which brings in most business with least cost & risk?

People have opinions, but does anyone really know for sure? I think the web is
still going through a learning phase, and there is still room for people to
try lots of different approaches to gain experience.

A study has shown user's preferences for flexible layout (see below), but I
don't know whether that applies 100% (I doubt it) nor how it translates to
business success. Does it apply to all pages? Including forms? Including front
pages?
http://psychology.wichita.edu/optimalweb/position.htm

I now design my photograph pages, and the galleries linking to them, on the
assumption that users in my target audience will have a viewport at least 700
pixels wide.
 
B

Barry Pearson

Toby said:
[snip]
Due to the physical limitations of the ink-on-paper medium, text in a
newspaper can't reshuffle itself so that you can read around the
obstruction.

However, the web allows for text to reshuffle to account for different
font sizes and browser canvas sizes. Indeed, this is the default
behaviour for all text on the web unless some designer goes to some
considerable effort to hinder it.

It depends on what level things are reshuffling. At the overall page-layout,
reshuffling can be disconcerting. I experimented to see how I should build
pages in which the major blocks on the page displayed typically floating
behaviour, sliding under one-another at narrow viewports, and came to the
conclusion that I hated that behaviour at the page-layout level. I realised
that I wanted to know where the major elements were relative to the viewport,
and didn't want to lose them vertically.

Test-wrap is very different. The eye-brain is so good at handling it that we
hardly even notice. In mid-sentence we automatically find the rest of the
sentence if it is within a reasonable range. We can tolerate it, in contrast
to the hated "article continued on page X". Side-notes on web pages (perhaps
using 2 or more columns) are typically better than foot-notes that can work in
print.
 
E

Els

Barry said:
I now design my photograph pages, and the galleries linking to them, on the
assumption that users in my target audience will have a viewport at least 700
pixels wide.

Which they most probably have, or else they would have to
scroll to see any picture big enough to see if they like it.
I think that applies to all photography sites, as people
don't want to scroll to see a picture from left to right.
 
A

Adrian Wood

Kris said:
But
what

OK, let's put it like this.

From a scientific point of view, you often test theories by taking them to
extremes... so let's do that here. Any site, no matter what the content or
how designed, has a minimul usable browser resolution. (I know you don't
like to corelate screen resolution with browser size.) For example, even a
text-only unformatted page wouldn't survive going under about 10 pixels wide
without becoming absolutely unreadable, and would require at least 100
pixels width in order to actually read the page without significant effort.

The same comes into play with any kind of textual or visual content; there
is a minimum usable size inherent in using it. The same may come to play at
higher levels; with an extremely large layout, a flexibly-designed page may
wind up with content which is supposed to be together being spread out.
(Less of a problem, and probably solveable, but still.)

Splitting graphics into multiple parts so that they can lie one under the
other etc can help, but eventually you have a limit based on the width of an
individual part..

So from a technical aspect, every webpage has 1) An absolute minimum
viewable width (one where all content is visible and readable,) and 2) a
minimum coherent view (one where content flows as originally concieved.)

From this, it's only a small jump to what Spacegirl has been talking about;
many sites decide that they do not want to fall below the coherent view
threshold.

A site with a fixed layout has only optimal effect on that exact window
width. A flexible layout will have that on that width too,
Correct.

and on smaller and higher sizes.[/QUOTE]

That depends on a person's definition of optimal. In terms of websites, some
people (such as you or I) would define optimal as maintaning site usability
and readability. Other's would define it as holding style and appearance,
which can include precise placement. It could be argued that HTML isn't the
way to do this, of course.
The same reasoning behind building separate sites for different window
sizes, different web browsers, different bandwidths, etcetera.

Note though, a lot of contrast added, my approach is on the opposite
side of the spectrum; I argue from a user perspective, while SpaceGirl
clearly argues from the corporate perspective.


I am not arguing the chain of decisionmaking. Actually, it is likely
that the design of the sites SpaceGirl mentioned were not decided on by
designers at all. What we are discussing however, is what to do when a
designer does have the chance to make the decision. She favors fixed
layout for reasons IMO insufficiently explained.


My opinion is that this conclusion is reached too early on today's web.
I don't believe at all that the designers of all the site that SpaceGirl
mentioned had to go through the phase of balancing the pros and cons; it
is much more likely that they reasoned like SpaceGirl does: "CNN and BBC
are doing it, so must we."


Why would it need to show that?

It may be that the banner graphic was far too wide for the browser window,
and often graphics are split into various parts to compensate. As a result,
dependant on layout, they'd possible get lumped one under the other... or
just overlay each other. I doubt that particular company would want anything
other than their name carried horizontally, even if it went off the screen.
The argument between the designer who thinks from the perspective of
those who has to use his work and the designer who is more of an artist
than a designer.

Absolutely. I never said I agreed with it, just that I *understood* it.
Thanks for supplying the smiley. I am sure we agree on the nature of
certain content, like bitmap graphics, that is not flexible at all.
Image scaling in browsers is however gaining momentum. If your
smallscreen browser does not scale image above a certain size yet, then
you would surely switch someday soon.

Happily, my little PDA does (by default) automatically resize graphics to
fit on screen, as well as as retabulating things so everyone goes on one
column. OK, it's still the browser having to fix what was broken by the web
designer, but still a decent feature.
Glad to hear at least someone agrees. :)

You are most welcome!
 
A

altamir


This site is a good example that flexible design isn't that good as most
of you say. Why? I'm using 1024x768 display with maximized window. With
these setting the above page is to wide, I have to move my eyes from left
to right in a uncomfortable way - I can compare it to reading very wide
newspaper. And what about higher resolutions? It's worse of course.
I played a little resizing my window I found optimal width for me at
about 650-700px.

I'm not saying that flexible design is worse than fixed, and I don't
understand people saying: "Don't make fixed pages! It's bad!"
It all DEPENDS. Every site has its own requirements, audience, target,
purpose and so on. For example, lets consider any photographer's site
presenting her/his portfolio. Most of the time it's a bunch of tumbnails
with almost no text. Do we have to make it flexible? I don't think so.
 
M

Mark Parnell

This site is a good example that flexible design isn't that good as most
of you say.

It's not a great example of flexible design in the first place. I get a
horizontal scrollbar at anything less than 600px wide. But that doesn't
mean what it has to say is any less correct.
Why? I'm using 1024x768 display with maximized window.
Fine.

With these setting the above page is to wide, I have to move my eyes from left
to right in a uncomfortable way - I can compare it to reading very wide
newspaper.

So you have your browser window too wide. Fix it. It isn't the site's
fault. I find it to be about right at fullscreen 1024x768. If it was too
wide, I'd make my browser window narrower.
And what about higher resolutions? It's worse of course.

As above.
I played a little resizing my window I found optimal width for me at
about 650-700px.

So leave your browser window that wide if that's the ideal width for
you.
For example, lets consider any photographer's site
presenting her/his portfolio. Most of the time it's a bunch of tumbnails
with almost no text. Do we have to make it flexible? I don't think so.

Why not? Why only have 3 thumbs across the page if the user's browser
can fit 5?
 
T

Toby A Inkster

Mark said:
It's not a great example of flexible design in the first place. I get a
horizontal scrollbar at anything less than 600px wide.

Really? I get a horizontal scroll bar at 358px wide, but not at 359px
wide. This is in Opera 7.23 with an above average default font size.
 
K

kchayka

Toby said:
Really? I get a horizontal scroll bar at 358px wide, but not at 359px
wide. This is in Opera 7.23 with an above average default font size.

I believe the scrollbar is caused by the long link names, near the
bottom of the page. "Real-World Browser Size Stats" has the longest.
Opera line-wraps it, mozilla doesn't.
 
P

Paul Furman

kchayka said:
I believe the scrollbar is caused by the long link names, near the
bottom of the page. "Real-World Browser Size Stats" has the longest.
Opera line-wraps it, mozilla doesn't.


It shrinks everything but those long links though so it really doesn't
matter much. I normally seem to get the container forced to be larger if
an element in it is big but this looks like everything is just straight
lists and not even anything inside a <div> or <p>.
 
M

Matthew Superstar Swass

Show me a site that can achieve something
I think it's bloody awful.

What do you find so appealing about it that makes it serve as a good
example? Really, I want to know.


Ignorant.

AlienWare.com's target audiance is younger people. Their main focus is on
gaming and high performance machines for graphic artists.

Unlike Dell or HP, they need a site with a decent wow factor for marketing
purposes. That site is primarily a big advertisement built to sell a product to
a very specific group of individuals.

The resolution issue isn't a problem for a site like that since serious gamers
and graphics people are almost certainly accessing the site from a high res
monitor. They know their target audiance, and they designed accordingly.

It should also be mentioned that a high end design like that will net the
designer thousands of dollars. So I wouldn't be so quick to call it "bloody
awful" if I were you.
 

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