Denise Palmer wrote:
> Once again...a new dilemma!
>
> I've just recently begun to design all my clients sites at
> 800x600, opposed
> to 640x480.
When you say "design...at 800x600" do you mean you design using that size as
a "lowest common denominator" or do you mean you view the site at that res,
but design to another spec? I'll assume that you are saying you are now
using 800x600 as the "lowest common denominator" spec. If so, I think it's a
bad, bad idea...unless you are designing for a known audience who all have
800x600 or higher monitor res settings.
> As I was working with one client they kept referring to too much "white
> space"...where I saw none, and "overlaps" where there were none, according
> to me.
Barry has stated some very important arguments regarding column width for
text and readability. There are a number of ways to keep column width under
control. The easiest is to stick everything in fixed-width tables. Another
way is to use variable width tables (percents). One of the better examples
of successful percentage-based designs that I know of is the (whoa is me)
microsoft.com. They do a lot of things with percentage based tables that let
their pages stretch gracefully from the narrowest window size to fairly
large ones. However, the percentage-based method doesn't stand much of a
change vs. the higher screen res's (1240 +). From my experience, people who
have their monitors set at the higher res's often float their windows at
smaller sizes, so the columns of text on percentage-based sites are more
readable.
When designing using fixed-width tables, always shoot for the lowest common
denominator, which is generally 640x480, which means your outermost table
should be in the 590-600 range. Sounds like you've been doing that, but are
up against the "white space" questioning.
One way to "cut the white space in half" is to center your outermost table.
That means that the big chunk of space that used to be all on the right is
now split up between the left and the right. Personally, I find that
approach to generally look more pleasant than the "why's it all shoved over
to the left" look.
> I knew we were both viewing at 800x600...come to find out, they were using
> "large fonts" and I have always used "small fonts" with an 800x600 screen
> display setting.
"Large fonts" (a Windows thing) have thrown me for a loop, too. It just
happened a few weeks ago at a presentation, as a matter of fact. My client
had his screen set to show "large fonts" and some of the database tables I
had in fixed width tables ended up with some real unreadable lines due to
linebreaks that were never intended. I think that WebTV uses some
outrageously oversized fonts, too. The way I look at it is: if someone is
surfing all the time with large fonts, chances are they a) realize that they
are making the pages look funky because of their large font setting or b)
are used to seeing screwed up pages on a vast array of sites, but aren't
bright enough to put one and one together to get two. Either way, I can only
do so much to anticipate the large font setting. I face the fact that some
"headlines" on my pages may wrap when they shouldn't and that some
paragraphs will be way longer, vertically, than I expect.
I think, but am not positive, that the "large font" setting, which is system
wide in Windows, is a user choice and is generally not a default during
setup. However, some users, when answering setup questions, may choose the
"use large fonts" setting without knowing the ramifications. I'm also pretty
sure that the large font setting effects all Windows elements, such as menu
items, title bars, dialog boxes, etc and that the user will see lots of
other screwy things going on during regular system use, not just on their
browsers.
Do I know what percentage of people use the "large font" setting? No. Anyone
know?
> Is there a standard that has been described for both the screen and font
> size for designers? How do other site designers accommodate these
> variables?
>
> If we must design to accommodate all these different settings...we are
> probably looking at quadrupling our time, and then of course the next
> question would be cost!!
The cheapest and most user-friendly method is to design to the lowest common
denominator in your audience base. Decide who they are then build so they'll
be happy.
> It's come to a point where I'm beginning to feel like I'll just design to
> the clients specs, so that they see everything as they should,
> and the rest
> of the world be damned!
Don't despair, Denise, what you're going through has to be gone through by
every web developer at some time. If you damn your visitors by giving them
something they can't use (scrolling to the right on every page when viewing
with a 640x480 monitor falls in the category of "can't be used", IMO), then
they'll damn you...or they'll damn your customer. It's better for you to
stick to your guns and do right for your client. Make them realize that
there are many different monitor settings and that you want to make sure
that no visitor is left out.
One of the best ways that I've stumbled into to show a client how different
a site can look on different monitors was to wander around their office and
fire up their site on everyone's machine that was connected to the web. The
client got a clear example of how different their site will look, both
layout (whitespace and word wrapping) and color tones. When they see things
differently on 4-10 monitors in their office, you can expand it to "so you
can see that I can't predict or design to hundreds of thousands of different
monitors sitting on desks around the world!". If you have access to all
those monitors at a client's office, you may want to try that route...and
cross your fingers that the IT guy at their company didn't buy everyone
exactly the same monitor and configure them all exactly the same way, heh.
Jack
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