When it comes to designing websites, there are two things to consider – look and feel of the design, and the usability. When the layout comes to mind, two core choices that the designers will have to make are then presented to them, to use a fixed width layout or a liquid layout. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, which we will discuss right here.
The reasons why these two exist at the moment with many heated debates is more of a technical issue than a design one. Internet Explorer does not support the min-width and max-width CSS properties, which is the main cause of the disadvantages in liquid layouts. Without these properties, liquid layouts give the user-controlled factors too much power over the layout which can cause the website to look very undesirable. However, the decision between both can still be made without compromising too much of the two factors that were mentioned above – appearance and usability.
Fixed Width – Appearance
Fixed width layouts have become increasingly popular nowadays and it is no surprise, the reason being that it is able to maintain a consistent appearance throughout all browsers and screen sizes. This comes to good use especially when businesses want to portray a consistent image for branding. Another advantage of using fixed with layouts is the predictability of its appearance for the users, giving the designers virtually complete control over how it will look for every user. This prevents factors such as font sizes, window sizes, browser differences and images from ruining the envisioned design.
Fixed Width – Usability
Usability is usually less of the decider when it comes to choosing a fixed width layout, since its advantages lay mainly in the design aspects of it. With fixed-width layouts, the text in the websites can be controlled to make sure that it is always easy for the user to read. It ensures that images do not make the text look insignificant and makes sure that the words appear with good volume in the design.
Without the controlled widths of fixed width layouts, lines of text may become too long; making it harder to read. It also causes problems with the perceived amount of text, as longer widths tend reduce the number of lines each paragraph has, causing them to appear shorter.
Fixed layouts usually have a substantial amount of unused space. Because it is usually made to fit the most common resolution, people using larger resolutions will see huge, empty spaces that may overwhelm the content area of the website. Due to this width constraint it has, users will have to scroll more as the content will stretch further vertically.
Liquid – Appearance
Liquid layouts fit the screen dimensions of the user’s browser and the content also stretches to fit everything nicely. Liquid layouts have very little control over how the website will look, since many of the factors that determine its appearance is in control by the user. Liquid layouts are rare nowadays and only specific applications or websites can use it without suffering from the disadvantages it brings. The main reasons for using a liquid layout are usually more inclined towards usability, which we will be talking about next.
Liquid – Usability
Unlike its fixed-width counterpart, liquid layouts can make full use of the available browser space. This is good for websites which designs have any space constraints and require the maximum utility out of the little it has.
However, this kind of flexibility also allows the user-end factors to create situations where the usability is compromised. When the window gets too wide, the text will stretch to very long lines which will require the user to move his head to read the content.
Conclusion
The two main choices boil down to these two layout types, but no one said you could not mix them. You could make the areas with long chunks of content using fixed width techniques to ensure that there won’t be lines that are too long, and portions such as the header and footer can be made liquid to make more use of the unused space.
Once you know all these like the back of your hand, it will only be a matter of which type will suit your design better and less of the technical reasons.
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