[WEB4LIB] Re: Pixel sizes for web pages

[Jon Horstman]

This is a very interesting debate. A good book that discusses white space and
text is "Creating Killer Web Sites" by David Siegel, 2nd. ed. I found this to
be really helpful in web design. I generally try to design web pages that will
look good at 640x480 and 800x600 resolutions with enough white space around the
text. I don't always achieve this, but that's my goal. (I haven't really
worried about resolutions higher or lower than that at this point.) Placing
text and images into tables with relative widths allows the browser to adjust
the web page for different resolutions. Sometimes I will set tables at an
absolute 600 pixels which will look okay at both resolutions, but usually I
will set them at 85 to 95% of the window so that they will adjust to the window
size. An example of this is http://www.wcu.edu/library/research/govdocs. Try
resizing the window to 640x480 and 800x600. It has the same look in both
resolutions.

Quick tip: An easy way to resize your browser screen to preview various
resolutions - use bookmarklets http://www.bookmarklets.com/

Walt Howe wrote:

> At 03:49 AM 19-08-99 -0700, Leonard Will wrote, in part:
> >I use a 17" monitor at 1152 x 864 pixels, and I find it irritating to
> >see pages that occupy the middle half of my screen with wide blank
> >margins on either side, They often have text forced into narrow columns,
> >requiring much more vertical scrolling than would be necessary if HTML
> >had been used properly.
>
> I must counter your argument. I find it very irritating to be forced to
> read wide columns of text that scroll across the full width of the screen.
> I deliberately design text oriented pages to column widths of 400 pixels or
> so for best readablilty. For readability, I would much rather scroll
> vertically than have to scan my eyes back and forth horizontally. As any
> speed reader will tell you, the best laid out text for reading allows the
> eye to scroll vertically without much lateral motion.
>
> Good design will break up pages so that little vertical scrolling is
> required anyway, but if I must present a long text document on one page, I
> will keep the columns at a readable width.
>
> Walt Howe <walthowe at delphi.com>
> http://www.delphi.com/pubweb/
> http://www.delphi.com/navnet/
> http://people.delphi.com/walthowe/
> http://people.ne.mediaone.net/walthowe/

--
Jon Horstman
Web Services
Hunter Library
http://www.wcu.edu/library