Time for further elaboration on the topic of My Opinion Regarding Website Sizing Relative To Viewport. I don’t think there’s a Team Page Zoom – you’ll have to forgive my previous title. And if there was, membership would not require taking an oath to make sites fixed width, fixed font size, or fixed anything.
My point is that there are drawbacks to flexible layouts just as there are to fixed layouts. My specific issue with the former is that developers effectively need to produce larger sites than are being delivered. It strikes me as wasteful to increase the size of all requests for all users in the name of flexibility. My specific issue with the latter is that you can’t change the magnification at all without browser support.
I don’t think anyone has really picked a side, a team, or even a standard methodology regardless of the amount of skepticism voiced. If you’re interested in the topic, though, you should check out Drew Mclellan’s recent post. Be sure to follow the link through to Cameron Moll’s post as well.
3 Responses to “Relative things”
Well said as usual, Aaron. And I definitely agree with your assessment that both fluid and fixed layouts have their issues; one isn’t inherently better than the other (though I have my biases), and designing in either offers their own unique set of challenges.
However, I’d suggest an alternative to this:
bq. My specific issue with the former is that developers effectively need to produce larger sites than are being delivered.
Not necessarily. I think you can definitely design to your “optimum” resolution—say, 1024×768—and produce images that best serve that sweet spot. I typically produce larger graphics because, well, I like accommodating folks above that resolution, but it’s definitely not a requirement. It’s really about establishing a sliding scale of support: if you want page zoom to take over once your user’s exceeded your “ideal” resolution, then I think that’s a perfectly acceptable decision.
That makes sense. Especially if it’s for a personal site.
Maybe this is another conversation, maybe it’s beginning to seem like a cop out, but it’s also hard to imagine explaining this all to a site managed by a client who doesn’t publish to strict design guidelines (e.g., photo sizes.) I can almost see the bug reports.
I don’t think it’s a cop-out at all. I think there are some real challenges to working with non-fixed layouts: however, I think they’re exacerbated by the fact that, well, fixed width has become the de facto layout mode, so we never have these sorts of discussions. We’ve learned to sell standards, accessibility, and other best practices largely because, well, we eventually learned as a community how best to do so. When it comes to non-fixed layouts, I think we need to figure out where our collective stumbling blocks are.