In reading the multiple monitor posts over at Jeff Atwood’s “Coding Horror” I was reminded of a conversation I had a couple weeks ago:
“Hey, I just wanted to let you know that your web site doesn’t look right on an 800×600 screen.”
“You should get a bigger screen,” I reply.
“I have a 30″ monitor, I just limit my browser windows to 800×600 to optimize the web stuff I do. You should really redesign your site to fit in 800 pixels, for compatibility.”
“I see. Similarly, I have a 50″ TV at home but I only watch stuff in the picture-in-picture window.”
“You do?”
“Actually, no, I don’t, because that’s dumb.”
Even my mother’s computer is capable of 1280×1024 now, on her laptop’s 15″ screen. I hope you all have bigger monitors than that, and if you don’t you now have all this new research to show why you should. What boss can argue with 50% more productive? 🙂
On the other hand…
The proliferation of PDA Phones and Windows Mobile has prompted page shrinkage and smart pages that recognize when a mobile device is accessing. QVGA (quarter VGA size, or 320×240 pixels) screens are pretty much standard; a lot of pages just won’t display, at all.
Yes, desktop and laptop screens are getting large, but that’s not going to happen any time soon with mobile devices, and you need to be able to support both.
not to mention, a lot of people don’t want a larger screen, because they value their computers’ mobility. If you think that this trend doesn’t “matter”, i point you to the two computers most alpha-geeks i know have been getting excited about over the past three months: The Macbook Air (13″ screen) and the Asus U1 (11″ screen).
I see this as an application problem. I wish WordPress was able to better detect these devices and present a different view to them. More text, less of everything else.
This is probably a common problem among web designers, but it seems like it’s hard to optimize for all these different types of use with only the tools we have right now…
Oh, and I want to mention that the Air is 1280×800, and the Asus U1 is 1366×768, so if I continue to design using my mother as the benchmark I’ll be fine. 🙂
I’m only worried about width, really. Height is always negotiable.
Of course, there’s also the question of accommodating people with disabilities… I know that N3D has a 30-inch flat panel set at 800×600 or something so that he can read it.
Again, of course, something that should be solved with stylesheets/whatever, most likely.
jon