Website Resolutions – If You’re Fixed, Will You Adapt?
Around five per cent of web users now have screen resolutions of 800 x 600 whilst most use 1024 x 768 or larger. You should check to see what screen resolutions are most used by your visitors, as the many differences could badly affect the way your site is seen!
The wide ranging options that now exist for ‘going online’, whether via a standard desktop PC, laptop, netbook, smartphone, or ebook has now increased website accessibility challenges demanded of site owners and their website design developers, alike.
With the recent launch, for example, of Google Chrome, IE8, AppleMac OS X Leopard, not to mention the coming of iPad, GoogleWave, GoogleBuzz to add to the mobile platforms, the time maybe now to examine your site stats and analytics. Undertaking a website refresh and looking at any access updating required is vital to staying aware of your site visitor behaviours.
The ability of your website to look the same in every browser, mobile device, or screen resolution may be an issue but if you are serious in both establishing your brand identity, and maximising your online marketing reach, you must be prepared to find the best solution for your particular business needs, especially if yours is an eCommerce site.
An early and most widely used approach was to design for the ‘lowest common denominator’, which meant optimising for screen resolutions of 800 x 600 with a fixed width design. However, this did not fill the entire screen and left much unused – and potentially fatal blank space – for users with higher resolutions.
Below are some current resolution options:
Fixed layouts – A traditional approach still widely used, where the same width is deployed whatever the user’s screen resolution, as they allow more control over design, visuals and branding.
Fluid layouts – A more flexible approach where the website expands horizontally above a minimum fixed width to support monitors with higher resolutions. Parameters for minimum and maximum widths will need to be set so that the look isn’t either squashed too much on a smaller screen, or stretched out too far.
Adaptive layouts – A more sophisticated version of fluid layouts where a different number of columns can be displayed at different screen resolutions, avoiding some of the problems associated with liquid layouts.
The potential drawback of using a flexible layout is that static assets, i.e. images will not stretch, so this can affect the look of the site on different resolutions.
User-selectable layouts – Users can select their preference, possibly in combination with an adaptive layout.
Generally speaking, it’s best to optimise for 1024 x 768 or higher. Remember - not all web users will be viewing their browser in full screen mode, so even if they have higher resolutions, designing sites for wider than 1024 pixels may not be necessary.
Whatever the resolution, the key is to always ensure that important content, navigation and calls to action are placed above the fold!
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Planning is the most important part of any marketing strategy. Online Marketing may be Successful with Careful Planning, So we must pay attention to plant before start.
Comment by Chiropractic Internet Marketing — March 1, 2010 @ 11:01 am