Recent figures
A popular portal site (CIM top 5) gave us some
interesting figures about their visitors' resulotions (figures from
October 2004).
| 640 x 480 |
0,26% |
| 800 x 600 |
23,34% |
| 1024 x 768 |
59,35% |
| Max. 1280x1024 |
15,57% |
| Higher |
1,48% |
Roughly put, 25% of Belgian surfers uses a resolution
of 800 x 600 and 60% uses a resolution of 1024 x 768. The number of
people who use a lower resolution is negligible.
Resolution versus browser window
First of all, resolution doesn't say anything about the
actual size of the browser window. A lot of people who use a
resolution higher than 1024 x 768 seldom open a web page in a
full-size browser window.
Fixed layout for 800 x 600
Most web sites with a fixed layout optimise their site
to look perfect in 800 x 600. The advantage is that you have total
control about every pixel of the design. It will look the same in
all resolutions.
But there are disadvantages:
-
75% of all surfers will see a lot of unused
space, because they use a higher resolution. These are the
people wondering why your site looks so small on their big
screen.
-
Sites that don't use a separate style sheet are
often not printer-friendly. Even with the style sheet,
there are problems. Not everybody uses a site's own
print-feature. Most people use the print-icon in their browser.
Only a minority consistently uses a web site's own print
feature.
Fixed layout for 1024 x 768
Using a fixed layout optimised for a
resolution of 1024 x 768 is asking for trouble. At least 25% of all
surfers will be confronted with horizontal scrollbars. And that's
not counting higher resolution users who open their Favorites or
History on the left of the page. The print problems we discussed for
the fixed layout for 800x600 also apply here.
Liquid layout
A
liquid
layout stretches and shrinks to fit the
browser window. The most important advantage is that it always
fills the page, regardless of the size of the browser window or
the resolution. Of course there will be horizontal scrollbars in
extremely small windows but that will always be the case. Another
big advantage is that a
liquid
layout pactically guarantees your
pages are printer-friendly. Of course you can still use a
separate print style sheet if you like.
Why doesn't everyone like a liquid layout?
-
In high resolutions the text columns can get
very wide and that causes reduced readability.
That's not really true. A standard three-column layout with a liquid right and middle column is perfectly legible in
resoluions up to 1280 pixels. Remember that only 1,5% of Belgian
surfers uses a higher resolution. And that they probably
don't open the browser window full-size.
Besides, you can use style sheets to make sure a
liquid
layout
is blocked at a certain maimum width. Internet Explorer 6.0
doesn't support this yet but let's hope future versions will.
-
You've got less control over the way
your site looks.
That's true but hey, isn't that what the internet is all
about? Different people visit your site with different operating
systems, browsers and resolutions. It's no drama that your site
doesn't look exactly the same to every single one of them. A
simple set of rules about image size and copywriting should make
sure your site looks good in every resolution.
