Subject: "Stretchy" vs. Fixed-width

From: Josh Berkus <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 12:16:44 -0800

Robert, Dave:

Hey, I wanted to settle -- or at least discuss -- the "stretchy" issue on 
website designs.    Aside from Omar's design, I think this is a useful issue 
to settle for a draft website spec, and *having* browsed the archives, I 
don't feel that it was ever discussed fully.  Tom, Robert and Dave have 
expressed that they *like* variable-width in the past, but I cannot find any 
discussion on the WWW list that lays out why we would, as a group, find it 
important to choose variable over fixed width.

So, some comparisons:
If you look at corporate websites, they tend to go for fixed-width:
www.ibm.com
www.hp.com
www.redhat.com
www.ca.com
www.sun.com
http://www.novell.com/linux/suse/index.html
www.vmware.com
www.apple.com
www.harpercollins.com
... in fact, I've been trying this morning to find a large tech software or 
hardware manufacturer web site that uses variable-width, and cannot.   

The sites that go for variable width seem to be:
(a) News sites
www.the451.com
www.slashdot.org
www.theregister.co.uk
... but not, interestingly, www.cnn.com
(b) Open Source projects/companies
www.mozilla.org
www.mysql.com
http://www.jboss.org/products/index
www.kde.org
www.debian.org

... actually, it's interesting how the web world is split; the big proprietary 
software/hardware companies seem to almost universally opt for fixed-width, 
and those centered around OSS projects are pretty much universally 
variable-width.    Partly the OSS projects are explainable because many (if 
not most) of them use community website packages which tend to be universally 
variable-width.

What this means, I don't know.   Thoughts?

What it seems to show me is that either format strategy is "valid" and 
"contemporary" and that our decision should be based on practical and 
aesthetic concerns, and not on what's "too 90's".

So, do people have reasons why one is better than the other?

-- 
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

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From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 23:02:05 -0400 (AST)

> So, do people have reasons why one is better than the other?

I like fix-width since it tends to mean that the "layout" will be the same 
no matter how I stretch/shrink my browser ... for example, the news links 
will always span the same # of lines, as opposed to sometimes spanning 
three lines cause I'm too narrow, or on one line because I stretch it to 
its limit ...

----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: [email-masked]           Yahoo!: yscrappy              ICQ: 7615664

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From: Mitch Pirtle <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 10:30:01 -0500

I'm not a layout person, but I will wager that any
professionally-trained designer will tell you that variable-width
layouts are asking for trouble.  I designed a few templates that
looked great, untl someone with a 1600x1200 or whatever monster LCD
maximized the window - then that carefully crafted layout was blown to
bits...

My $0.02.

-- Mitch

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From: Robert Treat <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 14:07:14 -0500

Thats because most "professionally-trained" designers are idiots when it comes 
to web design. They want to create artwork like on TV's and magazines 
(because what they really want to be are graphic artists), and they don't 
understand that the web is a different medium.  Different users have 
different monitor sizes, and the view text in different font-sizes, and they 
will even view the new website in different languagues.  Anyone who has study 
web usability will understand that trying to force your viewpoint of a design 
on someone else just leads to trouble. 

Robert Treat

On Sunday 21 November 2004 10:30, Mitch Pirtle wrote:
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
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-- 
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

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From: Mitch Pirtle <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 16:34:48 -0500

Let's not confuse opinion with fact here.  Whether you like fixed
width or variable is opinion.

Multicolumn text becoming unreadable when the column widths are not
controlled is a fact.

Anyone can design a layout that stretches to utilize all available
screen real estate. But that doesn't mean that the aesthetics or
usability remains constant as the layout dramatically changes - it
either looks great at larger sizes (and lousy on small ones), or great
on small sizes (and lousy on large ones).

I personally don't have a preference, but can say there are some very,
VERY intelligent people who have put a tremendous amount of time and
effort in order to learn what does and does not work.  Perhaps the
pundits on C|Net or eWeek are the 'idiots' that you effortlessly
categorize, but there are also professionals out there that have
expertise that is significantly superior to anyone on this list.

-- Mitch, knowing when his expertise reaches its limits (hint hint)

---

From: Robert Treat <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 10:30:01 -0500

> width or variable is opinion.

Whether you "like" it is opinion (highly dependent on the proximity of your 
browser settings to those of the designer in the fixed widht world).  

Which one is better practice of good web usability is not, it is variable 
width. 

> Multicolumn text becoming unreadable when the column widths are not

Entire websites becoming unreadable because the site design cannot adjust to 
people who need to read with large font sizes is a fact.  

variable width <> uncontrolled.  take a look at mozilla.org or debian.org, for 
sites that scale very well over several hundread pixel differences in browser 
width. 

> on small sizes (and lousy on large ones).

Again, look at php.net. Aesthetically speaking, it looks great on both small 
and large browser sizes.   

Further you're still overlooking that a fixed width website cannot maintain a 
constant aesthetic or usable interface, since things like browser size, 
monitor size, screen resolution, text size, languague, and use of graphics, 
can all be changed on the users end.   

> expertise that is significantly superior to anyone on this list.

The professionals who have studied this are not the pundits on eWeek and C|
Net, and they have come down on the side of variable width websites.   

> -- Mitch, knowing when his expertise reaches its limits (hint hint)

-- Robert, who happens to have a bit of expertise on this subject, as I use to 
do information architecture and web usability work professionally. 

> > Thats because most "professionally-trained" designers are idiots when it
> > comes to web design. They want to create artwork like on TV's and
> > magazines (because what they really want to be are graphic artists), and
> > they don't understand that the web is a different medium.  Different
> > users have different monitor sizes, and the view text in different
> > font-sizes, and they will even view the new website in different
> > languagues.  Anyone who has study web usability will understand that
> > trying to force your viewpoint of a design on someone else just leads to
> > trouble.

---

From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 12:28:22 -0400 (AST)

On Mon, 22 Nov 2004, Robert Treat wrote:

> Entire websites becoming unreadable because the site design cannot 
> adjust to people who need to read with large font sizes is a fact.

This is a *good* point ... I tend to run my X at a font size that most ppl 
looking at it have to squint or go right close to the monitor for ... I 
know some that have to run larger fonts because of eye sight problems ...

----

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From: "Joshua D. Drake" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 09:19:21 -0800

>Which one is better practice of good web usability is not, it is variable 
Ahh your second point is still very much an opinion. It doesn't
matter how much you state it as a fact, it is still an opinion.

>sites that scale very well over several hundread pixel differences in browser 
True but it still doesn't scale to 1600x1200 and nor should it.
I think it is definately a good idea to allow resizing to a particular
size that is smaller. Mozilla does an excellent job to 640x480.
I think that is a little extreme and that 800x600 is plenty.

>Again, look at php.net. Aesthetically speaking, it looks great on both small 
Well actually php.net looks horrible in general but I get your point.

O.k. I have a question, it sounds like everyone is arguing about different
things.

Are we arguing that the website should be fixed-width as in:

A. I am 1024x768 I will not resize PERIOD.

Or:

B. I am 1024x768 I will not resize to smaller than that.

To be honest this whole time I was arguing that we don't need
to scale UP. E.g; we can set the max to 1024x768 if you have a bigger
screen, great but it will still be 1024x768. However if you have a smaller
screen, we will try an accomodate you to a resolution of X.. (my IMHO would
be 800x600).

If I am incorrect on this argument, let me say now that we absolutely need
to allow scaling to smaller resolutions (to a point). Anything else would
be very silly.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

-- 
Command Prompt, Inc., home of Mammoth PostgreSQL - S/ODBC and S/JDBC
Postgresql support, programming shared hosting and dedicated hosting.
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From: Josh Berkus <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 09:58:19 -0800

Josh, Robert, people:

> >Whether you "like" it is opinion (highly dependent on the proximity of
> > your browser settings to those of the designer in the fixed widht world).

Can we kill this now?    We're none of us so rich in free time that flames are 
necessary.

From what I can tell, Fixed-width vs. Variable-width is a *tradeoff*, and you 
gain and lose things either way.    Let me sum up the pros for each:

Fixed-Width
	-- Supports more polished designs
	-- More "corporate"
	-- supports better visual organization of navigation
	-- better for websites with many images
	-- cuts down on scrolling
	-- emphasizes design

Variable-Width
	-- Supports a greater variety of browser/language settings
	-- More "open source"
	-- better for large quantities of text content
	-- emphasizes content

Do people agree with the above points?

-- 
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

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From: "Joshua D. Drake" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 10:03:28 -0800

>Can we kill this now?    We're none of us so rich in free time that flames are 
Ahhh I haven't see one flame in this thread??? I don't believe that
Robert would have considered that a flame (at least I hope not).

>Do people agree with the above points?
I agree with everything but the emphasizes.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

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From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:31:10 -0400 (AST)

> Do people agree with the above points?

I think that about sums it up ... not sure about the more "open source" vs 
"corporate", but for arguments sake, okay :)

----

---

From: Robert Treat <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:58:44 -0500

On Monday 22 November 2004 13:03, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> >Can we kill this now?    We're none of us so rich in free time that flames
> > are necessary.
>

Not a flame, just an uneducated response :-)  For a long while people argued 
the world was flat even after Magellan made his way back around, but for the 
people who had studied it, the jury was out and we knew it was round. 

Now, I'm willing to concede that there are some places where fixed width can 
be used without sacrificing usability, like a kiosk system or possibly on a 
small company intranet where you have a single browser mandate, and the 
computers involved are all uniform, however an internationalized web site of 
an open source project certainly doesn't fall into that category.  

> > -- cuts down on scrolling

i don't believe it leads to more polished design.  actually just the opposite, 
since a good variable width design is what really looks slick imo, probably 
because it is hard to do.

i dont see how it supports better visual organization of navigation either. 
actually i would tend to think it is worse, since your more likely to 
introduce issues with horizontal scrolling or wasted/unused browser space 
with fixed width.   

> >Do people agree with the above points?

Let me add a few pluses for variable width:
-- allows users to resize text as needed
-- promotes better scanability of site content

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From: "Greg Sabino Mullane" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 01:57:45 -0000

> Do people agree with the above points?
 
Only if you move most of the items from "fixed-width" into the
"variable-width" category. Browsers are for content, not
presentation. You can guide, but not enforce. You can still
have a great looking web site without specifying a single
absolute measurement.
 
- --
Greg Sabino Mullane [email-masked]
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200411222058