Over the years as laptop and computer monitor resolutions have increased giving us more detail, a website designed 5 to 8 years ago may appear unusually small. Back in the late 90s it was common to build websites with a page width of 6oo to 700 pixels. The common pixel resolution for the monitors back then was 800 to 1024. So you can see that 700 would take up most of the monitor. Not any more.
Is Bigger Better?
Fast forward to the present and big screens and high resolution is the order of the day. So how do we determine what size to make our web pages? It depends on your target client. If your target client is high tech then you can design your site large. In other words, you want to make use of the technology and you have decided that if the user can’t deal with it, they are not really your target client.
If your target client is elderly they may not see items on the right that go beyond their monitor resolution. Chances are they have an old computer. There will be other issues like font size and color that you need to think about because this type of client does see to well.
Common Ground
Being a web designer, I see more websites than the average surfer plus I have a trained eye. Over the years I have witness subtle shifts in design trends. Many new sites are quite large especially online magazines and news sites. For now, I believe the common trend is about 960 pixels for the average website. It accommodates both the new and old monitors resolutions.
It is also best to center your page to “float” on an expansive background. This way you may have some color or pattern left and right of your page. Any time I see a page aligned to the left I immediately think “amateur”. Left alignment is very 90s and is almost never done these days.
Still Wondering what a Pixel Is?
For web graphics a pixel is a unit, but its size is relative to how it is displayed. For example a low resolution monitor shows jagged edges because you are actually seeing the pixels. Think back to the 80s with video games they were very pixelly. Now with high resolution monitors edges look clean. That is because the pixels are very small. For that matter we need to make larger graphics for larger pages.
In terms of print, about 300 pixels makes a good clean inch. The more pixels per inch the sharper that image will be. For example 600 pixels per inch. Depending on the application the human eye won’t notice any difference with higher pixel-per-inch values. It just becomes unnecessarily wasted bytes.
If you are still confused about pixels I invite you to see this old article I wrote about Pixel size.
