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"no spam" <nosignin@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:B8CB752E.398BA%nosignin@hotmail.com...
> Jim Davis wrote:
>
> > You NEED to take into account all the other information you have.

First off, I'm confused again: what the hell are these people capturing?

Go to the browser width report and hit any of the "magnifying glasses"
(which is an awful icon for this since these are pretty much the defacto
standard for "search" and secondarily for "details").  This control brings
up the monitored page in a browser pop-up window sized to metric.

So click on "550-599" and you'll get a pop-up set to 550 wide.  So, if the
the metric is the available client area/canvas/palette this how would this
help since this window creates an application window sized to 550?  If the
metric is the size of the application window then the control makes more
sense, but the numbers are MUCH less useful since they don't take browser
chrome into account.

> Starting with the number of visitors who have their browsers at less than,
> say, 700 px.
>
> On the Superstats site, that's around 35%.  On the client site I
mentioned,
> it's 38%.  Check your client's site info, then ask the client if they're
> willing to at the very least annoy that many visitors.

Again, is this the available space in the browser or the application window?
I wouldn'y make any decisions based on that data AT ALL until that question
is answered.

But why pick "700" anyway (I never suggested that, did I)?  Why should
visitor browser width be a "starting" point at all?  I think you'll agree
that the best designs make no assumptions about the device (even to the
point of assuming a screen at all).  So the starting point, to me, is to
first identify if there's any content to be presented that needs a certain
minimum amount of real estate.

Only if there is such content (usually there is - at least banner ads) then
you should determine the minimum amount of real estate that content
requires.

The traditional way to consider things is, in my opinion, backwards:
designers want to know "how big" they can make things and then they make
them, you guessed it, that big.  This the kind of thinking that leads to
debates on screen size and such.

> All the other niceties are fine, but surfers simply will not expand and
> shrink their browser windows unless it's extremely compelling content
> addressing an extremely compelling need, and how many of those have you
> seen?

IF we're going to start setting boundries before hand then I think that the
current rule of thumb to design for "800x600" (minus chrome) is compelling
for several reasons:

1) You're right: people will not resize there browsers for content
generally.  As I've said they will generally settle on a size that lets them
see MOST pages without a horizontal scroll bar.  Sooo, if more pages are
designed to have no horizontal scroll bar in a browser maximized at 800x600
then most people at 800x600 will be maximizing their browsers.

(This issue here, of course, is that we're still in a transitional phase.
Although the VAST majority of surfers use at least 800x600 screen
resolutions a huge number of web pages were designed for 640x480.)

2) From a resolution case 800x600 offers a good balance.  640x480 (maximized
of course) offered a good column width with some room for either left or
right sidebar navigation.  800x600 offers a good column width with both left
and right side bars.  This seems to be the "sweet spot" for content needs:
navigation, content, and auxiulary information (ads, references, other
links, etc) can all be represented easily.

I think what you'll find is that "design for 800x600" will drive people at
800x600 to maximize their browsers, but that "design for 1024x768" won't
take off very easily if ever.  640x480 was to cramped but 1024x768 is a bit
too wide for comfort (readers comfort - designers will still try to fill it
up only to gain experience as a community and eventually shrink back down).

> From which you can infer that hardly anybody is ever going to change their
> window size for any Web site.

For any single site, yes - but they will change the size to ensure the best
experience across MOST sites.  You can't look at things in isolation (as
SuperStats does) you have to consider the whole thing.  Run down the list of
"top 100" sites from Yahoo or Nielson (I haven't yet) and tally the minimum
widths for them.  Whatever that average come to will be a good indicator of
how large people (with a choice) make their browser windows.

This is not a simple: "visitors do this so designers should do this"
equation.  Both communities lead and both follow.  Right now I think (for
better or worse - I don't make judgements here) that the designer community
is leading the user community to maximizing browsers at 800x600.  I think
the next shift however (as I've said) will be the user community dragging
the designers back from 1024x768.

However in the end I think that we're arguing the same resulting position,
but we have different beliefs leading us there.

Jim Davis
--
President, Depressed Press of Boston:  http://www.DepressedPress.com/
Webmaster, Virtually Boston:  http://www.vboston.com/
Webmaster, First Night Boston:  http://www.firstnight.org/
Senior Consultant, Metlife eCommerce IT:  http://www.metlife.com/