Why use a fixed-width layout?

Posted by kevin Tue, 07 Mar 2006 15:34:14 GMT

There is only one reason: Because text over a certain horizontal width is hard to read. It’s hard to follow the line all the way across, and you get lost between the two endpoints of the page.

Yes, it’s less efficient. Yes, there’s more “blank space” on the page. Web design isn’t about being after efficiency, or words per square centimeter, but rather readability.

Here’s some sites that I think show the beauty of fixed width layout very well:
http://37signals.com/
http://43things.com/

http://www.blogger.com/start ( great use of simplicity, 1, 2, 3 bullets. I dislike the lack of left justification in the search window )
http://digg.com/ (pretty wide one though. note similar top menu to my latest sites)
http://www.loudthinking.com/ ( great line on the left side, with the right-justified links against the left justified body text. I still feel that sidebars should be on the right, since we read from left to right they are less distracting )

I put more mini reviews in there than I thought I would, but it was fun. Perhaps I’ll do it more sometime :)

Design is art. And no-one agrees about art. One thing they do agree about: they hate change.

1 comment