Comments on: Why I Design Fixed-Width Websites

By: Bill

Bill — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 01:29:09 +0000

I hate sites that aren’t fixed width. They annoy the crap outta me…

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:44:14 +0000

The way it SHOULD be looked at is really that it depends on what the site is and how much content you have. What is the point of having a fluid site if you do not have the content to utilize it? I would rather see a centered fixed width with a really creative use of the sides. On the flip side what good is a 600px wide website that scrolls forever simply because you cannot create a fluid site?

I cannot stand when people resort to name calling because someone has a different opinion than their own. Like life itself, there is no definite right or wrong answer. Everything has its place and usage.

By: David Lewis

David Lewis — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 12:58:49 +0000

Just like a designer “the sites I design arenÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t content-heavy anyway.” so if you’re making a useless pretty site that does nothing – go fixed width. If you’re making a proper website with content (e.g. wikipedia ) go fluid.

By: gareth hunt

gareth hunt — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 08:24:22 +0000

Is it just me or has the trend for misleading article titles really taken off in the last few months? There is a reason why there aren’t long-standing arguments over whether a site “should” be fixed, fluid, liquid, scaling, elastic, fantastic, whatever. It’s because you use what is appropriate for the job, for the content, and so one week you might make a liquid site and the next a fixed site. I just don’t get the point of this article other than basically repeating what is pretty obvious.

The real issue is people who make fixed width sites but declare far too many vertical dimensions in pixels and end up with a site that completely breaks with the slightest bit of text resizing.

By: PXLated

PXLated — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:25:31 +0000

Boy Wyatt – You hit on one of my big pet peeves. Sooooo many sites, fixed or flex, break on text enlargement. Everything should stay within it’s containing box (extreme enlargement will break all however). I’m amazed at how many so-called web developers blow their code on this.
I have a MacBookPro-17 with the high-res option so am constantly enlarging text. 25-30% of the sites I visit break. It’s like they’ve never tested this, never considered accessibility, have no quality control checks.

By: Wyatt

Wyatt — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 14:58:24 +0000

“The Web is designed as a universal space. Its universality is its most important facet. I spend many hours giving talks just to emphasize this point. The success of the Web stems from its universality as do most of the architectural constraints.

The Web must operate independently of the hardware, software or network used to access it, of the perceived quality or appropriateness of the information on it, and of the culture, and language, and physical capabilities of those who access it.”*

Tim Berners-Lee, who you may know as “the man who invented the web,” said this in 2004. He’s still talking about it. Making a web page with any width that isn’t entirely dependent on the size of the screen is, by definition, breaking this very fundamental rule.

And so I will say:
The size of EVERY element on a webpage, without fail, should be dictated by the size of the text the user sees. Increasing text size should adjust the width and height of the elements they’re part of and, if necessary, create line breaks that expand the element’s area vertically.

Notice how differently https://fsi.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/dw/ and http://www.cnn.com/ behave after you’ve incremented the text size upward a few times. At no point does the former ever become completely unusable, and no actual content ever obstructs by covering any other content. CNN, by contrast, doesn’t just become hideous (the way zMogo does when you increase the text size)– it actually becomes completely unusable because too many things interfere with one another.

*Link: http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/TLD

By: PXLated

PXLated — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 09:57:53 +0000

I think if you are a “control freak” (most ex print designers are) you’ll always be locked into a fixed width even though it’s not ideal, in fact it’s boring as hell. The biggest inhibitor (for those that want to set their designs free) has been the lack of support for max/min widths. As soon as IE6 dies, that will go away. Learn to use percentage widths and you can also control text width to a certain degree, or a combination fixed/percentage.
I have to agree with some others here, always using a fixed width is the lazy designers layout of choice.

By: real programmer

real programmer — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:12:01 +0000

Real programmers create fluid sites.
Wannabes (artistic types) create fixed width sites.

By: Anton Jenkins

Anton Jenkins — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 16:38:50 +0000

I have to say I agree wholeheartedly with you on the merits of fixed width versus fluid. However, if you’d asked me 12+ years ago (not that I was doing web development back then!) I may have swung more towards fluid because back then screen resolutions were much lower and if you had precious screen real estate you wanted to take advantage of it.

These days I think most people are viewing with screen widths of at least 1024 pixels which is ample space for a nice, readable design with plenty of room to let it breath. And as has already been pointed out – we don’t want lines of text stretching on forever!

As for mobile devices – if you are expecting a lot of mobile traffic then design a mobile version of the site. If it’s that important then surely it warrants the investment in time and it means you don’t have to compromise your main design. Win win.

By: john

john — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 22:42:39 +0000

The problem with fixed width is that the world doesn’t use the same width you use. Different people have different sized fonts and screens. Other people have mentioned mobile devices, so I’ll mention those of us who are old or myopic enough to near larger fonts. I hit Ctrl-+ a few times in Firefox on most sites, which reduces some fixed width sites 3-5 words per line, which is far too few to read.

By: PJ

PJ — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 20:34:39 +0000

Fixed width websites suck. They all look like crap on my 30″ monitor, wasting tons of whitespace for no good reason. Even on my 24″ monitor, I don’t appreciate having to scroll down 3x in a fixed width website to read what would fit in one fluid-layout screen. If you want to do fixed width, why not just go all the way and publish your entire site as a PDF or as pages that are really just one big image?

Also, don’t write off mobiles as a one-off special case; the point is that you as a web designer have zero control over the browser’s size or the screen size, so you need to make a site that’s workable in all of them. This month mobile phones are the ‘different, special’ platform, but next month it’s going to be netbooks, and next year it may be projectors or HUDs or what have you. To say nothing of the needs of visually impaired users and people who use text browsers like lynx or w3m.

Yes, it’s more difficult. That’s what they pay you for.

By: Julien

Julien — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 19:37:39 +0000

The same question was asked on StackOverflow this week: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/547000/why-would-you-choose-a-fixed-width-design

By: Workpost Foreman

Workpost Foreman — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 19:13:06 +0000

I like the best of both worlds, fluid or elastic layouts with fixed (or at least limited) width content inside. Like the previous posters have said, Amazon does it well, utilizing the entire page in a way that is not annoying..

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 18:38:25 +0000

In the day of widescreen monitors, handheld clients, and constantly changing viewports — your view is just outright wrong. Fixed-width designs are the realm of the lazy and “artistes” who are more interested in eye candy than actually having a readable site.

By: chicgeek

chicgeek — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 12:41:47 +0000

@Kate – I entirely agree. Though I know I can be prone to a too-minimal style, I almost always believe that simplification is the key to improvement.

@Rob – I didn’t consider mobile devices in this article – my focus was on laptop or desktop users. As Greg said, dedicated stylesheets are a must if you’re designing for mobile phones. In that case, I would agree with you and opt for fluid width – so much style can be lost in that medium anyway.
Also, there are some very good sites with dedicated mobile designs, even though Wikipedia isn’t one of them. The aim is to discover our own personal best possible system of design, not looking at what is out there. I’d rather strip the user of the choice on standard screens and… well, it’s all up there in the article anyway.

@Jack – Exactly! It’s why newspapers are easy to scan – the column method goes far. And to tell the truth, on webpages you would rather have someone merely scan through content than not read it at all.

@Tristan – First, I didn’t design this site, and I’m not sure exactly why you are saying. Second, every designer is entitled to their own choice. I feel I made good arguments for both fluid- and fixed-width and made my decision from there. It’s refreshing to have a differing opinion. Though I assure you, I have designed “correct” fluid sites in my day, too. It is through my experiences with both that I made my choice.

@Trey – If it is elastic, it’s still fluid (or liquid, or proportional, or whatever you call this rose), even if you use side margins. You’re entirely right: a fluid site doesn’t have to entirely fill the width of a screen and can even use text resize. But other issues still exist, including control over varying displays.