Site Size Question? How many Pixels?

#1

Hi, you can view my site here: http://www.recordingnyc.com

My question is: My site is 800 Pixels wide. I think I read somewhere ages ago
that if you don't have a site that's 100% width, you should keep the size to
800px. Is this true....or should I say is this true anymore? I would like my
site to be, let's say 950px wide. Would that not be a good idea for technical
reasons?

Also, feel free to critique my site. After 20 years of not advertising my
services, I finally decided to bite the bullet and build one. Please let me
know what you think and how I could improve it?

Thank you very much for any help!

#2

Quote:

Is this true

No.

Quote:

Would that not be a good idea for technical reasons?

It depends entirely on your target demographic. If that group of
individuals can accommodate 950px wide pages in their preferred browser
width without dropping horizontal scrollbars, then go for it. My sites are
still built at 760px width, because I want to support maximized browsers on
an 800x600 px screen. Looking at your site, the only benefit you would
experience from a wider venue would be shorter pages (which are a bit
verbose, in my opinion).

It's a nice site with no serious problems that I could see. The only thing
I would suggest would be to add this CSS -

html, body { height:100.1%;margin-bottom:1px; }

Make sure you add it below the body {} rule.

This will force all pages to have a vertical scrollbar, and eliminate the
side-to-side jump as you navigate from long pages that actually need one to
short pages that do not.

--
Murray --- ICQ 71997575
Adobe Community Expert
(If you *MUST* email me, don't LAUGH when you do so!)
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"engmix" <webforumsuser (AT) macromedia (DOT) com> wrote

Quote:

Hi, you can view my site here: http://www.recordingnyc.com

My question is: My site is 800 Pixels wide. I think I read somewhere ages
ago
that if you don't have a site that's 100% width, you should keep the size
to
800px. Is this true....or should I say is this true anymore? I would like
my
site to be, let's say 950px wide. Would that not be a good idea for
technical
reasons?

Also, feel free to critique my site. After 20 years of not advertising my
services, I finally decided to bite the bullet and build one. Please let
me
know what you think and how I could improve it?

Thank you very much for any help!

#3

engmix wrote:

Quote:

Hi, you can view my site here: http://www.recordingnyc.com

My question is: My site is 800 Pixels wide. I think I read somewhere ages ago
that if you don't have a site that's 100% width, you should keep the size to
800px. Is this true....or should I say is this true anymore? I would like my
site to be, let's say 950px wide. Would that not be a good idea for technical
reasons?

You pays your money you takes your choice to be honest. Nothing can be
considered to cover everything and every ones screen/browser set ups.

The higher the screen resolution the more the end user can accommodate a
wider design in their browser window (the browser window being set at
what physical size, in proportion to the screen, they think is
'comfortable').

If you change your pages width from 800px to 950px at the current screen
resolution that my computer is set up at it will show horizontal
scrollbars. If I alter my screen resolution to be higher than it
currently is I can then open the browser widow wider and your page will
most likely be ok at 950px width.

If you leave your page width at 800px wide and I still alter my screen
resolution to higher than it currently is your page looks as though it
should be wider i.e., you have excess amounts of black real estate on
both the left and right. If the page is set left and not centered this
obviously compounds the problem.

The answer is YOU CANNOT design for everyones computer set up unless you
use a fluid page width i.e. set it at 100%.

I would stay at around 750px - 800px so you can take advantage of more
users. The facts (if they are to be believed) reveal there are more
people still using lower resolution set ups than those that are using
higher ones.

Quote:

Also, feel free to critique my site. After 20 years of not advertising my
services, I finally decided to bite the bullet and build one. Please let me
know what you think and how I could improve it?

On the up side your site is clean and user friendly but lacks any visual
stimulant for my tastes.

Personally I think its too boxy and looks detached rather than being one
entity.

Ulitmately there is nothing wrong with it but its just lacking a little
bit of 'magic dust' of some kind.

I wouldn't take the critic too much to heart, I just feel it could
somehow hang together a little better and make me want to take a look
around a bit more than I do.

Obviously if youre not from a design background then its a mighty good
effort. If you are then you should be able to do a little better.

#4

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I haven't built a site in a really long time,
and being that I don't do it for a living, I'm a bit rusty. Murray thanks for
the css code. Wondered how you did that?

Os. I agree with you about the design. I am much more of a musical than visual
person. Although, I know what I like. I wanted to get a site up very quickly,
and the design was more of an after thought. I did look at some sites before
approaching mine. I have to say other than a couple of Flash sites.... none of
them blew me away. Some where just ridiculously bad. Since I want my site to be
crawl-able I won't be using flash. Although I might put in a flash movie on the
left side to kind of flash it up a bit. Just out of curiosity, is there
anything that comes to your mind that you would change?

Thanks!

#5

engmix wrote:

Quote:

Os. I agree with you about the design. I am much more of a musical than visual
person. Although, I know what I like. I wanted to get a site up very quickly,
and the design was more of an after thought. I did look at some sites before
approaching mine. I have to say other than a couple of Flash sites.... none of
them blew me away. Some where just ridiculously bad. Since I want my site to be
crawl-able I won't be using flash. Although I might put in a flash movie on the
left side to kind of flash it up a bit. Just out of curiosity, is there
anything that comes to your mind that you would change?

Its not really that bad at all to be honest, its perfectly acceptable as
far as web sites go. Maybe I'm just a little more 'fussy' because I'm
hampered by coming from a design background, which can sometimes stop
quick progress because you're forever cross-question yourself as to if
this should be here, there, or anywhere in fact.

Design isn't that much of a mechanical process like code writing, it's
more of keep pulling things around the page until something starts to
come together.

I wouldn't worry too much. If someone wants to use your services they
most likely WILL NOT be thinking like me. Its a clean user friendly site
and that's probably more important than being visually stimulating but
unusable. Of course combining both is a plus.

#6

"Osgood" <notavailable (AT) thisaddress (DOT) com> wrote

Quote:

...The facts (if they are to be believed) reveal there are more people
still using lower resolution set ups than those that are using higher ones.

I don't know.. my site statistics show about 96% of my site visitors have
1024 x 768 or higher resolution, for whatever that's worth.

--
Patty Ayers | Adobe Community Expert
www.WebDevBiz.com
Free Articles on the Business of Web Development
Web Design Contract, Estimate Request Form, Estimate Worksheet
--

#7

On Sun, 6 Jan 2008 20:12:37 -0500, "P@tty Ayers ~ACE"
<pattyayersTAKETHISOUT (AT) REMOVEgmail (DOT) com> wrote:

Quote:

"Osgood" <notavailable (AT) thisaddress (DOT) com> wrote in message
news:flik1l$47d$1 (AT) forums (DOT) macromedia.com...

...The facts (if they are to be believed) reveal there are more people
still using lower resolution set ups than those that are using higher ones.

I don't know.. my site statistics show about 96% of my site visitors have
1024 x 768 or higher resolution, for whatever that's worth.

Patty, what site stats package do you use? I can get a ton of info
about my sites from the package my host uses (awstats), but not
resolution.

Win
--
Win Day, Wild Rose Websites
http://www.wildrosewebsites.com
winday (AT) NOSPAMwildrosewebsites (DOT) com
Skype winifredday

#8

"Win Day" <winday (AT) NOSPAMwildrosewebsites (DOT) com> wrote

Quote:

On Sun, 6 Jan 2008 20:12:37 -0500, "P@tty Ayers ~ACE"
pattyayersTAKETHISOUT (AT) REMOVEgmail (DOT) com> wrote:

"Osgood" <notavailable (AT) thisaddress (DOT) com> wrote in message
news:flik1l$47d$1 (AT) forums (DOT) macromedia.com...

...The facts (if they are to be believed) reveal there are more people
still using lower resolution set ups than those that are using higher
ones.

I don't know.. my site statistics show about 96% of my site visitors have
1024 x 768 or higher resolution, for whatever that's worth.

Patty, what site stats package do you use? I can get a ton of info
about my sites from the package my host uses (awstats), but not
resolution.

Hi Win - I'm using Google Analytics. Free, and for my me, it's much better
than anything else I've used.

--
Patty Ayers | Adobe Community Expert
www.WebDevBiz.com
Free Articles on the Business of Web Development
Web Design Contract, Estimate Request Form, Estimate Worksheet
--

#9

On Mon, 7 Jan 2008 11:04:16 -0500, "P@tty Ayers ~ACE"
<pattyayersTAKETHISOUT (AT) REMOVEgmail (DOT) com> wrote:

Quote:

"Win Day" <winday (AT) NOSPAMwildrosewebsites (DOT) com> wrote in message
news:7633o3h8gpv527d53upf22bbv8jfuqspko (AT) 4ax (DOT) com...
On Sun, 6 Jan 2008 20:12:37 -0500, "P@tty Ayers ~ACE"
pattyayersTAKETHISOUT (AT) REMOVEgmail (DOT) com> wrote:

"Osgood" <notavailable (AT) thisaddress (DOT) com> wrote in message
news:flik1l$47d$1 (AT) forums (DOT) macromedia.com...

...The facts (if they are to be believed) reveal there are more people
still using lower resolution set ups than those that are using higher
ones.

I don't know.. my site statistics show about 96% of my site visitors have
1024 x 768 or higher resolution, for whatever that's worth.

Patty, what site stats package do you use? I can get a ton of info
about my sites from the package my host uses (awstats), but not
resolution.

Hi Win - I'm using Google Analytics. Free, and for my me, it's much better
than anything else I've used.

Thanks, Patty! Ooooh, another shiny new thing to look at!

Win
--
Win Day, Wild Rose Websites
http://www.wildrosewebsites.com
winday (AT) NOSPAMwildrosewebsites (DOT) com
Skype winifredday

#10

"Win Day" <winday (AT) NOSPAMwildrosewebsites (DOT) com> wrote

Quote:

On Mon, 7 Jan 2008 11:04:16 -0500, "P@tty Ayers ~ACE"
pattyayersTAKETHISOUT (AT) REMOVEgmail (DOT) com> wrote:

"Win Day" <winday (AT) NOSPAMwildrosewebsites (DOT) com> wrote in message
news:7633o3h8gpv527d53upf22bbv8jfuqspko (AT) 4ax (DOT) com...
On Sun, 6 Jan 2008 20:12:37 -0500, "P@tty Ayers ~ACE"
pattyayersTAKETHISOUT (AT) REMOVEgmail (DOT) com> wrote:

"Osgood" <notavailable (AT) thisaddress (DOT) com> wrote in message
news:flik1l$47d$1 (AT) forums (DOT) macromedia.com...

...The facts (if they are to be believed) reveal there are more people
still using lower resolution set ups than those that are using higher
ones.

I don't know.. my site statistics show about 96% of my site visitors
have
1024 x 768 or higher resolution, for whatever that's worth.

Patty, what site stats package do you use? I can get a ton of info
about my sites from the package my host uses (awstats), but not
resolution.

Hi Win - I'm using Google Analytics. Free, and for my me, it's much
better
than anything else I've used.

Thanks, Patty! Ooooh, another shiny new thing to look at!

You're welcome! It was quite a discovery for me too. :-)

--
Patty Ayers | Adobe Community Expert
www.WebDevBiz.com
Free Articles on the Business of Web Development
Web Design Contract, Estimate Request Form, Estimate Worksheet
--