Does Size Matter?
Written by Deb Dorchak - February 24, 2010 15 Comments
Some like them really big. Some like them wide. Some even like them small. There are some who can only handle one, and others who like two or three at a time.
The kind of monitor a person chooses and the way he or she uses it is as varied as the stars in the night sky. Seriously, what did you think I was talking about?
Tonight as Allison and I were working on a project I saw a scroll bar across the bottom of the site and she didn’t. Her browser window was fully expanded to take up the whole screen; mine was not. Since I like to see what’s going on on my desktop at any given moment, I usually tile and size my browser windows so I can see a little bit of everything behind it while I’m on the laptop.
When I’m on the BIG computer I have three different monitors and a lot of real estate. I still size the windows of the browsers and programs I’m using so I can see what I’m doing where while I multitask.
What’s With All The Monitors?
Many designers have dual, triple and in some cases, quadruple monitors splayed out across their desks. Why? Many of the programs we work with have a lot of menus and take up a lot of space, especially if you’re working with animation.
Monitors also vary in color display from brand to brand. While the designer may be working on a state of the art 28″ HD screen, the rest of the world isn’t. We as designers know this. In my case, not only do my extra monitors offer much needed real estate, they also give me a look at what designs look like for various people.
I have one cheapo 19″ Acer that has average resolution, a secondary Gateway 24″ which probably represents a good middle ground, and a 27″ HP monitor for doing most of my main work on.
Although I can’t account for every possible resolution or size out there, I still get some kind of idea how things will look.
Browsing Browsers
Browsers are the bane of every designer’s existence. Firefox is ideal and the most user friendly when it comes to displaying websites. Internet Explorer, in all of its incarnations, not so much. I’ll leave the specifics to our dear Allison to explore one day, but suffice it to say, IE causes a lot of problems with website viewing.
Also, the way in which individuals view their browsers on their monitors makes a difference. Some people like to expand the window the full width and height of the screen, while others like to tile and size each window.
With today’s wide screens there’s often a lot of space on either side of a standard 960 pixel width web page. I’ve had so many people ask me “Why is there so much space on the sides?”
Well, 960 pixels won’t fill up a typical wide screen. There’s nothing technically wrong with it, it’s just the standard width. Sure, I’d love to go wider, especially since larger screens are so much more affordable these days, but there are still pockets of web surfers who still have 17″ screens.
What Do You Prefer?
This brings me back to my original thought: What does the general public prefer? With all these variables, how do you view the web? Do you expand your browser windows full screen? Do you have a large monitor, or more than one? What do you think is the standard? Which browser is your favorite and why?
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Read the Comments
15 Outstanding Responses to "Does Size Matter?"
Barbara Swafford on February 24, 2010 at 2:39 pm | Permalink
LOL Deb, great title.
I use a 22″ monitor as I work a lot with split screens. A bigger one would probably be better, but for now this will do. I have a spare 17″, but haven’t figured out how to hook up two monitors yet (and wonder if I need/want to add more to my already cluttered desk.)
Although I use Firefox, I notice from my stats a lot of my readers are still using IE. Thus, whenever I make changes to my blogs, I test them on IE to make sure everything looks okay. What I have found is some themes “break” in IE. That’s always frustrating when I’ve already done a bunch of tweaking only to find I need to start over.
P.S. When I saw the tweet from Wendi, my first thought was you’d be talking about headers.
Barbara Swafford’s last blog post… I Want More Comments
Davina on February 24, 2010 at 2:43 pm | Permalink
Hi Deb.
I like them big
I do expand my browser windows full screen. I have a 21-inch monitor and I used Firefox for browsing. I have to admit, I don’t know enough about the different browsers to say I prefer one over the other. I switched to Firefox because of the Firebug and SEO add-ons that are supportive of blogging.
Sometimes I tile my browser window when I’m proofreading websites. I will have the test site open in one window and the layout jpeg in the other so I can compare.
Davina’s last blog post… Getting Sensual with Creativity
Deb Dorchak on February 24, 2010 at 2:50 pm | Permalink
Barbara! Yeah, couldn’t resist the title. Just having some fun. If you want to hook up a second monitor, just check the back of your tower if you’re using a desktop. There should be an extra place for another monitor if your graphics card came with it. If not, there’s a nifty little device I found that you can connect through the USB ports to add another monitor (and actually add up to 6!). I’m sure I can dig up the name of that product if you want it.
IE in all it’s incarnations is the bane of my existence. In fact, there’s been a big movement over the last several years among web designers to get rid of it. When we do fixes we often have to create a whole separate CSS style sheet just to accommodate the IE bugs. It’s a headache.
I think so many people are hooked on IE since it comes bundled with every computer package out there. There’s a reluctance to change and try out Firefox. People get stuck in habit ruts. Many businesses haven’t even upgraded from IE 6 or 7 yet, that’s how reluctant they are to change!
I can’t tell you how many times we’ve done cross browser checks only to find out that the problem was the client hadn’t upgraded to the most recent version of IE. Many designers, including us, state clearly we won’t support IE6 anymore.
But there is hope. A lot of the developers out there are cross checking their themes to make sure they’re compliant across the boards as far as the major browsers go. This would include Firefox, IE, and Safari. And that’s only a small handful of ALL the different browsers out there.
And thanks for the idea about headers, I never thought about that!
Deb Dorchak on February 24, 2010 at 2:52 pm | Permalink
@Davina: That’s another perk of multi-monitors; you can compare what things look like side by side. And Firebug is an excellent plugin. Beats the hell out of searching through endless lines of code to find what you need to change!
Allison Day on February 24, 2010 at 2:57 pm | Permalink
There are a lot more of us with small screens than you’d expect. Anyone with a laptop – we probably average at about 17″, and there are a ton of us. My screen is 15″, and the laptop I had until about a year ago was 13″. Then there are those teeny tiny netbooks, like the one my brother was issued at his high school. And that’s not even taking into consideration the way normal websites display on the iPhone or iPod Touch.
I tile my screen as well, though I always make sure it’s wide enough to display a typical 1000px website. When I’m coding, it’s almost impossible to work without tiling (thank goodness for Spaces on the Mac… it’s a lifesaver). For years I worked on just my 15″ screen, until just recently when I got Son’s old 22″, when he upgraded to a fancy new HP monitor.
As for browsers… as a developer, I almost have to use FireFox, because FireBug is so incredibly useful when coding websites. Safari and Chrome are on my approved list as well, because most often if it works on FF, it’ll work on them as well. Of course, especially as a Mac user, I’d really rather if IE just went and threw itself off a cliff.
Not only is it a complete pain in the rear to code for, but since there isn’t a version of IE for Macs… I have to go turn on an entirely different user just to test my websites. (Thank goodness we do have a Windows machine in the house… otherwise I’d end up having to ask poor Deb to test every single website for me. 
)
Eliza on February 24, 2010 at 5:40 pm | Permalink
@Barbara – your first thought was Headers? Huh, shame on me then
Okay, I live off of a laptop and it is only 17″, or maybe 15″. I am spatially challenged, so let’s just say it’s a small screen. And I regret that decision. Given the amount of time I spend on my laptop, and my aging eyes (sigh), I should have gone with a bigger monitor. Ah well, just another excuse to get a new laptop someday.
Since I am generally only on 1 site or document at a time, I do full screen. But on my small screen laptop (did I mention I regret that decision?) I can’t see stuff at the bottom, because I also like to have my taskbar available. So, for example, looking at pics in Facebook, I can’t see the captions people have written.
As for browsers …. Allison is very proud of me because I have FINALLY moved out of IE into Chrome. And yes, I love it. There, I’ve said it. I love it.
Eliza’s last blog post… Book review: What’s Next for You?
Deb Dorchak on February 24, 2010 at 5:52 pm | Permalink
@Allison & Eliza: Ah, yes, the laptop. I forgot about those small screens, mainly because I don’t do any of my graphic work on it. When my big comp broke down last year I had to survive doing everything on the laptop and nearly went insane.
Betsy Wuebker on February 24, 2010 at 7:28 pm | Permalink
Well, I’m off a netbook hooked up to a larger, older monitor that could be 19″? Love the portability with the little guy. And when we speak of the netbook, we must use a squeaky little voice such as we use with small dogs.
Hate IE. Locks up the RAM it does, or something. Hate that MS upgrades reset the default browser in some cases back to IE. Jerks. I use Firefox, love the add-ons. It just feels like an old friend.
Deb, it sounds like you’ve got a USS Enterprise setup going on!
Betsy Wuebker’s last blog post… Roaming Through Michigan
Allison Day on February 24, 2010 at 7:38 pm | Permalink
Yay! I’m so proud of you, Eliza.
I vote for Deb posting a picture of her actual setup… I hear it’s AWESOME. Who’s with me?
Deb Dorchak on February 24, 2010 at 7:49 pm | Permalink
@Allison: That means I’ll actually have to do some cleaning first.
Maquis on February 25, 2010 at 9:17 pm | Permalink
I work on screens of a variety of sizes. Currently, I’m on my laptop, which has a 12.1″ screen, and a max resolution of 1024×768. Yeah, it kinda sucks, but I love this laptop (yay for tablets!), and the other thinkpad which has a 1280×1024 resolution is on its way out. However, when I’m not lying down on the bed with the laptop, I’m usually at my desk with a 24″ widescreen monitor. I can’t remember the max resolution of that thing off the top of my head, but it’s *way* nice. Then, there’s the Aspire One that I got off a coworker for 15$ because the screen was cracked. It’s hooked up to a 19″ monitor. At work, I had 19″ monitors, side by side, connected to a desktop, and then a laptop. So, I guess I’m just not particularly picky about monitors, but I would say that bigger is better, in terms of resolution.
On the topic of browsers, I’m personally of the opinion that websites that require IE are stupid. However, I have no problem with websites that break on IE. If your browser doesn’t support the internet standards, that’s not my problem. Personally, I have recently switched to chrome, and I’m enjoying it more than I thought I would.
The one thing I can’t stand is websites that detect your browser, then tell you you’re not supported just because they don’t recognize the browser correctly. I have this problem sometimes when running iceweasel (a fork of firefox for debian), which was frustrating because if I just changed the browser to claim it was something else, it worked fine…
Deb Dorchak on February 25, 2010 at 10:04 pm | Permalink
Maquis! Good to see you, Mama! Thanks so much for stopping by. Have you checked out Allison’s Coding Thursdays yet?
Don’t think I’ve ever run into a site that detects the type of browser I’m using. Very interesting.
Allison Day on February 25, 2010 at 10:09 pm | Permalink
Hey, Erin! *waves*
Deb, I’ll bet you have run into sites like that, but since you probably almost always use one of the supported browsers, you just don’t realize it because you won’t ever have any problems with those sites.
maquis on February 26, 2010 at 1:26 pm | Permalink
Deb,
I agree with Allison. If you run a reasonably standard browser, you probably won’t notice those sites. On rare occasions, Safari can have problems, but that’s pretty unusual. I’ve run into issues with a variety of different browsers, some of which actually had valid reasons to not be supported. Iceweasel is the only browser I’ve seen that got stopped where I knew there wasn’t a valid reason.
(btw, did you know that you can make firefox claim to be the googlebot? that’s a fun little trick I’ve heard of a few times)
Anyway, I have been poking through here, just haven’t commented yet. I’ll probably be around more often, though
~Erin
Barbara Swafford on February 27, 2010 at 1:15 am | Permalink
@ Eliza. You’re funny. I KNEW Deb would be keeping things clean here since this is a reflection of Sirius Graphix. Now if it was her personal blog, then I’d be thinking like you.
@Deb. Thank you! If I decide to add another monitor, I’ll check out the back of my tower and see if it will support a second one. If not, I’ll be back to ask for the name of the gadget.
Barbara Swafford’s last blog post… I Want More Comments