Web Design & Screen Resolution / Size

There are two established web design methods Percentage & Fixed Pixel.

There are pros and cons with both approaches

Percentage:

Pros: Prints consistently and provides more space when there is lots of content – thus perfect for the comparison page.

Cons: Text can get spread across wide areas and becomes almost impossible to read – very user unfriendly. Pages can look fat and short when a page has little content. Empty space is created between items to fill the screen

Example: Amazon

Fixed Pixel:

Pros: The web site will look consistent from 1 computer to the next and after all this is the medium it is designed primarily for. Width of text areas and relationship with images are carefully controlled.

Cons: Empty space exists outside of the design creating wide “borders” on large displays. Does not print as consistently.

Example: BBC

So Which is Best?

Percentage is good for filling space in large or high resolution displays but will cause designs to appear inconsistent with different display settings.Text can be difficult to read when spread across the screen.

Fixed pixels is good in that it always looks consistent in different displays but on large or high resolution displays empty space may occur outside the design.

On a monitor using a 1280-pixel width and a browser set to a reasonably large size (about 90 percent of available), there's plenty of single-color space. It's tolerable. Though once you realize it's there, it's can be both helpful (if you have to have another window on top).