Wide screen web design

Dell have confirmed that they will discontinue traditional screen sizes in the coming months and it’s widescreen by default from here on out.

This may not seem like a big deal but it is. Theres a whole load opportunity for starters. In the begining when we built for 800 X 600 pixels, we struggled to display all the important stuff on a single page. 1024 X 768 came along and helped us address that issue but brought with it some new issues. Fluid or flexi-width pages became the next big thing and for a long time the world settled into an internet world on 1024 X 768.

This worked quite will for us as content on a screen tended to be roughly the same width as a book, somewhere between 15 – 20 words per line and there was just enough space left over to give us a menu or peraps some relevenet advertising down the side. Today however there is almost 600 new pixels to the right that need filling.

Personally I dont think letting your main content stretch that far is a usefull option for the same reason that broadsheet newspapers are written in columns. 1600 pixels is too wide to scan with your eyes. You could use it for additional menu or advertising blocks but now you have decide which items are unimportant enough to put on a block that many people will not see. The result of course is a block of unimportant content.

Mike Madaio has an intersting article on using javascript to move your menus about based on the screen resolution if you decide to go down that route.

My sugestion is to use the space for a big juicy call to action. Depending on the site it may be an invitation to contact or enter a competition, etc. Now as it happens we are redesigning the snapiweb website and have decided to give it a try so I’ll update this blog with the design comps and let you see where we go with it.