Does Size Really Matter?
By Jay Thompson | October 12, 2007
I’ve had a lot of people with web sites ask me about how bad it is if someone has to scroll to see all of their web page. Some “experts” will tell you that ANY scrolling is not good. However, most web sites require vertical (up and down) scrolling. Web pages these days just have too much content to fit everything on one screen. Most people expect to scroll vertically when they visit a web site, so it’s really not a big deal.
Horizontal (side to side) scrolling however is another thing. People DON’T expect to have to scroll horizontally. If you design a web page that requires significant horizontal scrolling there’s a good chance that your visitors may never see what’s on the right side of your page. And that is not good.
I’ve heard many folks say things like, “I’ve got this huge monitor, but I still have to scroll horizontally to see my web page!” Indeed, over the years, monitors have gotten bigger.
But when it comes to displaying information on a computer screen, SIZE DOES NOT MATTER! It’s the RESOLUTION that counts!
What the heck is resolution? Well, you can read a dissertation about resolution on Wikipedia. The short answer is resolution is the number of columns and rows of pixels creating the display. With today’s monitors and graphic cards, you usually have several resolutions you can pick from — 800×600, 1024×768 and 1280×1024 are pretty common. Like most technology, screen resolution keeps growing and growing. (My first color monitor, a “CGA” had a max resolution of 320×200). The higher the resolution, the more pixels are in the display, and more pixels mean clearer pictures, more colors, and the ability to display more on a given screen size.
So what’s all this got to do with your web site? You should optimize your web site for the resolution most of your visitors are using. Again, many experts say if you optimize your site for 800×600 resolution, then it will appear the best to most of the internet users out there.
The statistics from my web site however don’t bear out these expert opinions. As you can see from these actual stats, 98% of my site visitors use a resolution higher than 800 x 600.
So I optimize my sites appearance to look best at 1024 x 768 and higher. Yes, this means that the 2% using a resolution of 800×600 will have to do the dreaded horizontal scroll on my web site. But it also means I can put more information on the screen for the other 98% of my site visitors.
You should make it a practice to change your screen’s settings to see what your site looks like at different resolutions. If you use Windows, just go to your desktop and RIGHT click. You should see an option that says “Properties”. Click on that, then click on the Settings tab. You’ll see a little slider thingy (that’s the technical term) where you can change your screen’s resolution. Change it and then see what your web site looks like at different resolutions your visitors may be using. (Sorry Mac users, I can’t remember how to change Mac screen resolution and sadly have no Mac access to re-learn it.)
If your web site provider doesn’t provide you with visitor resolution stats, get a new website provider. you can always get the free version of SiteMeter and put that on your site. That’s where I got the stats shown in this blog post.
Plenty of people struggle with the concept of resolution. It just seems to make sense that you should see more of a web page on a bigger monitor. But consider my old friend the television. Odds are pretty good that you have two different sized TV’s in your house. Do you see MORE of a picture on your bigger TV? No, you don’t! The picture on a 13 inch TV is the same as one on a 52 inch TV. It just looks bigger on a big screen TV. Same concept with PC monitor resolution. You won’t see more of a web page on a larger monitor (unless you increase the resolution).
A lot gets written about optimizing the content of a web site. Very little gets mentioned about optimizing the on-screen display of a web site. You’ll do well to optimize your site display for the majority of your visitors. Proper display optimization allows you to better use all of the screen real estate. And more on screen info will in turn likely help your rankings in the search engines!
Author's Website: http://www.phoenixrealestateguy.com
Topics: Websites |
5 Responses to “Does Size Really Matter?”
Comments
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October 12th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
Great topic! I hate it when I have to scroll horizontally and probably often don’t even realize when I miss content on websites that have content to the right of the screen.
October 12th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Jay, thanks again for sharing another of those little gems. Go Dbacks!
October 14th, 2007 at 5:06 am
Jay, the title had me concerned there for a minute!
October 15th, 2007 at 11:30 am
The invention of the mouse wheel killed the requirement for “no scrolling” pages.
Side to side scrolling however, is certain death.
Also side bars MUST be on the left. Westerners read from left to right.
December 16th, 2007 at 11:59 am
Jay - You’ve offered another great tip for any website owner. I just tried changing the resolution down to 1024×768, which covers 99% of my visitors. I only looked at my home page, but it showed off how some graphics need to be placed in a table to keep them all on one line.
I’ll be checking this in the future whenever I make formatting changes that involve images.