Size Matters (update)
It would seem the march to larger screen sizes proceeds:“The data reflects a continuing trend of users moving to larger screen resolution sizes,” commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter. “The screen resolution size people are using is a critical factor for developers when it comes to web design, particularly in the case of fixed width web pages.” – StatCounter Global Statshttp://gs.statcounter.com/press/screen-resolution-alert-for-web-developers
The company’s research arm, StatCounter Global Stats reports that for the first time 1366×768 has become the most popular screen resolution worldwide, having overtaken 1024×768.
Reach Out & Touch
Customers looking at web content on their phones now have come to expect to tap a phone number and then tap CALL. You can insure that this will function across all mobile platforms by adding the above code.
Mobile “Phones”
Steve Jobs’s public fight with Adobe over Flash represents the barest hint of the challenges graphics artists and web development teams confront when trying to create content for this fractured world of 24/7 connectivity. The “perfect” world is promised to us all in the form of HTML5, as though this “standard” will provide platform interoperability. It’s way way too early to make the assertions currently being bandied about tools and techniques that are promised “real soon now.” What is a graphic artist or web developer to do in this environment right NOW?
We might lament the fact that Flash animations and videos won’t play on a hundred & twenty million devices and bristle at Steve Jobs intransigence. Our clients, however, take a more mercenary view and demand that THEIR content display EXACTLY the same on every platform. Errrr, Uhmmm, Uhhhh – that’s what they pay us for – right? After all, we’re the content creation experts – right?
One other caveat is that this design technique is only appropriate for the type of content that rarely, if ever changes. One example we did was for a personal trainer → and then, in turn, linked a menu choice to a google sites blog so that she could have a beautiful ‘brochure’ and a platform to easily update.
Some day our prince will come to give us platform independence. Some day. Real Soon Now. For now, we have clients to satisfy.•
Size Matters
Websites have to be designed for some lowest common denominator. What screen resolution should designers utilize that will satisfy the widest audience? The current thinking is that we are in a transition from 800 pixels wide that is commonly thought to correspond to monitors that have a resolution of 800×600 pixels.
Research seems to suggest that this resolution has fallen to a tiny minority of desktops. In addition we have to consider the scaling issues attendant with smartphones.
Our designs currently specify a width of 920-960 pixels. The lowest common denominator in screen resolutions would be an Ipad and the many inexpensive Netbooks that utilize a native resolution of 1024×768.
A page designed with this width will display properly on 90% of the screens currently in use. Another school of thought is liquid design where the page will adjust to 100% of the screen width. With such a large variety of large monitors your page design can look pretty ridiculous when a nicely formatted 8 line paragraph becomes a single line of text 2560 pixels wide!
For a detailed breakdown of these statistics visit the Browser Statistics Page →
at w3schools.com. They have compiled informative statistics to guide thinking in these questions. There really isn’t a correct answer to this dilemma – it’s an exercise in tradeoffs•
A Picture . . .
. . . is worth a thousand words. Not So Smart. Servers. Phones.
I had a rant about the difficulty of ‘talking’ to smartphones and the difficulties of just what smartphones do with the info you send them, and, well, while indulging in the guiltiest of pleasures – XKCD.COM. – they did all my work for me! Be sure to visit this worthwhile time-waster!