On 2012/01/23 10:35 (GMT+0800) Ghodmode composed:
960px is a good max width... for most site visitors.
...where "most" is as little as 50% + 1 of today's visitors. I consider that a gross exaggeration except in cases where you know your demographic includes no netbook or handheld devices. At the other end are today's high resolution users, and tomorrow's much higher resolution users. IOW, the size of a px, until such future time as a CSS px and a device px are normally not identical, and probably even after that time for a long time to come, if not indefinitely, is an unknown size that bears an unknowable relationship to legibility and usability on users' screens, because px size depends on px density, which varies considerably among environments.
OTOH, the em unit bears a predictable relationship to both legibility and usability, and thus is the better way to determine how wide is wide enough. It makes a big difference how wide is 960px on a display on which 960px is nearly the full width of the screen (1024x768), or one on which it is less than half a screen wide (e.g. 2560x1440); and similarly where 960px is 60em wide (16px browser default), or one in which 960px is less than 24em wide (e.g. 3840x2160 or higher; considerably more than 16px browser default).
Screen densities are rising and will continue to rise. The main thing holding them back from rising more and faster is DTEs that presume yesteryear's crude average density and make little or no allowance for things to work properly when density is more than a little bit higher. Em units make no such anachronistic assumption, even going so far as to allow respect for user settings without significantly disrupting layout.
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