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04/27/2001 "resolution resolutions"

The Human Factors article on monitor resolution has stirred up some fun debate:

rudy wrote:

this kinda sticks out -- "A website is best when it is designed for a monitor resolution that matches the monitor resolution of the majority of your users. This provides a full-screen layout for those who desire to use the full width of their monitor for web pages."

~ Error #1 "A website is best when it is designed for a monitor resolution" -- a web site is best when it is designed for what you *do* there

~ Error #2 "the monitor resolution of the majority of your users" -- so, by this logic it's safe not to code for the blind?

~ Error #3 "This provides a full-screen layout" -- in other words, they haven't quite mastered the liquid layout concept yet

~ Error #4 "for those who desire to use the full width of their monitor for web pages." -- which naturally includes all the clever people at human factors

and aardvark wrote

Dr. Bob Bailey (the report's author) and I have exchanged a few emails about the report, primarily to address his assertion that my article states "...that as monitors size get larger, offering larger viewable browsing areas, users tend to concurrently open more pages." This is not at all what my article states. In fact, my article tries to avoid drawing any conclusions, and simply shows the numbers. Now, the numbers suggest that people will surf full- screen up to 800x600, and that viewable window size is never the same as available screen real estate. The chart in the WebReview article pretty much shows it all. Dr. Bailey seems to understand my points, but I don't know if he'll be updating the report.

Other issues I had included his lack of understanding of liquid layouts, and even the comment, "To make it even more difficult, any serious discussion of monitor resolution also should include a discussion of monitor size." Monitor size is not a factor. Window size and screen resolution are the two factors.

And nobody even touched the bit-depth data I gathered...

, from oldest to newest:

Well, now error #1 is taken a bit out of context: I'm sure they don't mean to say "a website's overall quality is highest when monitor size/resolution is the primary design consideration." Do they?

What I get from the article is: "hmm, people's monitors are all over the place, just like they have been and will continue to be. Better do flexible layouts."

Posted by andrew @ 04/27/2001 10:04 AM pst

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yeah, but i didn't get the "better do flexible layouts" feeling from the article at all, i got "go ahead and design fixed layouts and feel free to make them fit 1024"
the article did at least mention flexible layouts but then knocked the idea by saying it has line length problems -- well, yeah, if you let your lines go all the way to the edges, i suppose that's true, but there are ways around that too (although these are not covered in the article cited below)

plug type=shameless

my Liquid Tables article on evolt.org

Posted by rudy @ 04/27/2001 10:35 AM pst

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