Retire the 800 Table Rule

[iMan]

I have to say that having to fit pages within 800 have been a little annoying to me. Since I work in 2560x1600 normally, 800 seems tiny...
so I was happy that Greenie decided to change this and I hope that more will do the same.

And hey, when those 16% surfers will have to scroll sideways all day long to see some titties, maybe they'll get a clue and upgrade their stuff.
I mean, porn is usually drives people to by new technology anyway, right

[johnnybg]

Originally Posted by iMan

And hey, when those 16% surfers will have to scroll sideways all day long to see some titties, maybe they'll get a clue and upgrade their stuff.
I mean, porn is usually drives people to by new technology anyway, right

Well, while it's nice to educate surfers about the quality of their equipment, I somehow don't think that they'll rush into the store to buy bigger screens for your sites.

What will happen, though, is that they'll click little "X" button on your site and go buy porn on other free site.

[virgohippy]

Originally Posted by johnnybg

What will happen, though, is that they'll click little "X" button on your site and go buy porn on other free site.

I was thinking the very same thing...

BUT, that doesn't mean a site designed for a wider screen won't sell better for those surfers who already run at higher resolutions.

For example, a good friend of mine who operates his computer from his couch and uses his big screen TV as a monitor and has a monthly budget for fun stuff.

Here's the big question: do you want your product to be optimized for as many of your surfers as possible, or do you want to focus on a smaller group?

[Jim]

I have always been had the school of thought that you design for the least common denominator. Using percentages works much better than by the amount of pixels for everyone.

Until, 800 wide users are down to 0, stick with it. Most people that buy memberships to pay sites really don't know a lot about the internets So, many of them are probably still using dial up and a 15" monitor.

[johnnybg]

Originally Posted by virgohippy

Here's the big question: do you want your product to be optimized for as many of your surfers as possible, or do you want to focus on a smaller group?

My group is already "small" so I really don't want to shrink it just because I have widescreen notebook.

If you can sell with 800px you will sell with 1000px and even 10000px for that matter.

Jim has a good point with percentages. Optimize for everyone.

[Mr. Blue]

Originally Posted by DaveE

I feel 1000 wide will increase my sales and by the sounds of it will not restrict acceptance of my new free sites to the majority of link sites. And I believe if we all start doing this then the last few link sites will change their rules to match the demand for more detail.

The problem is people tend to focus on what amounts to minutia. Let me give you an example...Awhile back someone complained viciously about TGP rules (I've also seen the same about LL rules) and since I happen to review for a few TGPs, I was familiar with their galleries. They ranted about minutia little rules instead of the fact that they just didn't know how to build an effective gallery. Their thumbs sucked, their design sucked, their sales pitch sucked, and they were using overused content. Basically it comes down to, don't blame the dressing when it's the salad.

Now, I'm not saying you're this type of person, and I'm sure you do great designs, but from personal experience it's always been simple clean designs that focus in on the content that makes me the most sales. 800px or 1000px...if you're not making sales at 800px the extra 200px ain't gonna help you any.

Also, it's the factor of working in the system and not working outside the system. Rules will change as the time changes, but instead of butting your head against a brick wall it's just better to perfect your designs for what's most widely accepted by all LL, etc.

[lassiter]

Originally Posted by Maj. Stress

I wonder how may people surf with their window maximized?

I know very few that do. I and most of my friends usually have their browsers set for around a 2/3-wide screen so they can see their mail, IM, and video player windows on the desktop as well. So a 1024x768 screen resolution with a more than 800-wide page means the surfer will still have to side-scroll unless they open their browser to full-screen.

I personally run at 1280x960 and think 800-wide pages look exactly right, since I don't need to open my browser full-screen to see 'em.

[backoffbitch]

Personally I find that people designing freesites that are width scalable are generally designing sites that look like shit. Not all do though, some scale nicely and still look good but a majority of scalable freesite designs have elements spread out way too thin and everything looks empty to me. Like they were designed in 1995.

As for general design that incorporates graphical headers, I think 770px wide is the way to go. You cant scale a jpg or a gif. it just doesn't work that way. I've used layering and css to make elements scalable in graphical headers but it's still spread too weird and doesn't work when it's a centered design. To allow the body of the page to scale and the header to sit still is doable. Just depends on how you build your header. Left or right justify the header and allow it to scale over a background image that suits it, and you're good to go.

Overall though, 770px wide is perfect, it's compact, to the point, everything is easy to access without much effort on anyone's part and it keeps banner happy designers in check... well.. for the most part. It is a bit limiting on placement of elements though. Personally I'm starting to get damn tired of the simple middle single column or one column on the side design. More than that and you lose valuable real estate. So I use CSS a lot now to put columns where they fit nicely and control text wrapping to work around it. It works well for scalable designs too but for my bitching-galleries blog I went back to 800x600 to keep things simple and controllable when it comes to images and such.

[jayeff]

As we should, we take people seriously who come to the boards looking for ways to enhance their businesses by one or two points. So how can we even entertain the suggestion that we do something to alienate 15% of our potential customers?

That apart, many people using higher resolutions and bigger screens open multiple windows, rather than using the whole screen for just one. Big-screen or not, there is also a maximum line-width with which people are most comfortable. That applies primarily to text, but even on highly graphical sites we still want surfers to focus on enter buttons, specific text, etc, so it cannot make sense to overwhelm those hot-spots.

In short, design for 770-780 pixels wide. It is the usable width of 800x600 screens (with the most common chroming) and a comfortable width at higher resolutions. By all means ensure that your design is at its best at 1024, since that is currently the most common size, but it should not degrade badly, ideally not at all, at lower or higher values.

Anway that is only part of the picture (no pun intended). A lot of visitors have the option, whether you like it or not, to re-scale your text with a simple click of their mouse rollers. Instead of ignoring that, since the results can be horrible if not planned, cater for that possibility and give all your visitors a choice to see your site(s) as they prefer. Sure you will have problems with animated gifs and poor-quality graphics, but otherwise there is nothing to prevent graphics, as well as text, being scalable.

I really don't understand those who use huge screens and ultra-high resolutions for design: this is business, not a competition to see who scores the most geek-cool points. If you must design for only one group of visitors, at least make it the largest group: 19 inches at 1024.

[iMan]

I think everyone should make sites that are at a MINIMUM 1600 wide

Although I of course agree that no one should be alienated, I'm not sure that a little side scrolling will infuriate the 800x600 people so much that they will immediately close their window and go elsewhere... or write a letter or something.

It's not very difficult to stick to the 800 rule, but it would be nice to have some wiggle room... but with all LL rules out there threatening to hurl my ass to their blacklist every other sentence, if it says max 800 wide, I'm taking it literarily.
On the other hand, if it would say max 1024, that doesn't mean that all my tables will always be fixed at that big size.

It would be nice to know a bit more about this statistics though.
I mean, I've read many posts where traffic from certain geographic locations is unwanted. Could there be something similar with this?
Maybe 98% of those 16% is a group of people who will, for whatever reason, probably never ever pay for porn..
(Or maybe they're actually the group of folks who pay for 90% of all memberships online )

Anyone know about a more detailed study in this area?

[DaveE]

Originally Posted by MrYum

We'll simply agree to disagree on the quality issue, as I see great quality sites every day built to 800 wide. And we'll also agree to disagree on the attitudes...I must have missed the humor in the tone of your post. If it was there, I missed it...no harm...no foul.

I checked out your site in all resolutions up to 1280.
Looks great. Are you sure you'r not bigger than 800

I guess just coz I'm when I write something it does not always come across in text. After reading everything posted, some by people I know and respect I have conceded and my new table size for the new sites will be fixed at 750 I don't feel like wrapping my head aound auto resizing.

[DaveE]

Originally Posted by iMan

I think everyone should make sites that are at a MINIMUM 1600 wide

It would be nice to know a bit more about this statistics though.
Maybe 98% of those 16% is a group of people who will, for whatever reason, probably never ever pay for porn..
(Or maybe they're actually the group of folks who pay for 90% of all memberships online )

Anyone know about a more detailed study in this area?

I was thinking along the same lines as far as the stats. Would be nice to know the size stats for members of adult paysites.

But for now as far as size goes I have to agree with Jim.

[MrYum]

Originally Posted by DaveE

I checked out your site in all resolutions up to 1280.
Looks great. Are you sure you'r not bigger than 800

I guess just coz I'm when I write something it does not always come across in text. After reading everything posted, some by people I know and respect I have conceded and my new table size for the new sites will be fixed at 750 I don't feel like wrapping my head aound auto resizing.

Thanks...the site was designed for 800, but keeping it looking acceptable at wider res was also a priority.

Very true, sometimes things do get lost in the written word...no worries here

The time will come for wider free sites, some say it has already arrived. Myself, I think it will be here within a year at the outside...though I could be wrong...it's happened before

[JohnWebcams.com]

I think the design should be secondary to the porn. In my experience the more amateur (but still organized) a page works the better it converts. I think most surfers are at the lower end of the IQ range so it's best to make things dumby proof and EXTREMELY SIMPLE.

This includes scrolling -- some might not even know how to scroll from side to side, some can barely operate a mouse

16% of the market is very huge, and you're also assuming that people will view your site at full screen. What if they don't want to?

[emmanuelle]

Originally Posted by JohnWebcams.com

I think most surfers are at the lower end of the IQ range so it's best to make things dumby proof and EXTREMELY SIMPLE.

This includes scrolling -- some might not even know how to scroll from side to side, some can barely operate a mouse

Are you sure that you really want to publicly bash (and underestimate) the people who put food on your table?

In my experience, it's the people who don't appreciate & value their customers that tend to fail in most businesses.