Left Right or Centered layout

[Whitecrest]

Something I never see mentioned here. Regardless of the content or
technology used on a website, do you prefer:

Content Centered
Content Left Justified
Content Right Justified,
Content uses the full width of the window.

 

[George Self]

This answer would be related to design - and personal bias.

For me, left justified is the easiest to read (for those languages
that read left-to-right). Thus, if I have a lot of text on the page I
will left-justify it.

Centered can be used for headings and other such brief interruptions
in the flow of the text.

Right-justified is very difficult to read and should only used for
very sections of specialized text, like poetry or headings.

Full-justified would be nice, but tends to add extra spaces between
words (in order to justify the right margin). That's why you sometimes
see odd lines with dozens of spaces between just two or three words on
the line. Because of this odd spacing the line becomes difficult to
read.

If you want people to read your page (there is lots of text), then you
should stick to left-justified (again, for a left-to-right language).
If you are attempting to achieve some sort of artistic look to your
page and there is not much reading (like a page of photos or
something), then use whatever looks best. For short sections of
"specialized" text (like a menu), use whatever you think looks good.

--George

 

[Whitecrest]

This answer would be related to design - and personal bias.

For me, left justified is the easiest to read (for those languages
that read left-to-right). Thus, if I have a lot of text on the page I
will left-justify it.

Not just the text, but the entire content, for example,
http://www.foxnews.com/ Is left justified in my browser,

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/dropdowns this is centered,
and google is full window.

 

[Els]

Not just the text, but the entire content, for example,
http://www.foxnews.com/ Is left justified in my browser,

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/dropdowns this is centered,
and google is full window.

I was wondering what you meant by 'content', but guessed you
were talking text, as you used the word justified. Anyway, I
prefer the 'page' centered or full window. I really don't
like it when a fixed width page is completely to the left of
my window.

 

[Matthew Superstar Swass]

Totally depends on the specific design used.

Content Centered
Content Left Justified
Content Right Justified,

These three are basically the same. The sites are typically made to fit in
800x600 res, but add blank space to one side or both in higher res. Yahoo.com
and Sony.com do this, but one is set up in the center and the other to the
left. They could switch and still be the same site.

Content uses the full width of the window.

It's hard to make this work unless you use a generic base layout. If you are
not using a lot of text, there will be a lot of white space on higher res.

You can also fake a full width by stretching the top menu across the screen and
then doing a left or center justify of the main content.

http://www.webshots.com/search?query=car

Cubs.com - Notice also how the background graphic on the right is repeated to
fill the sreen.

I find genuine full width sites hard to read unless it's on a 800x600 res
screen.