For example, there are some clean default templates on Blogger, just right for lots of text, but they are fluid. You can easily convert them to fixed width using the method in this article:
http://blogger-templates-directory.blogspot.com/2004/09/fixed-width-webpage-hack-for-blog.html

Cheers
quicklode

But I will admit its more difficult to work with variable width layout when you start getting involved in the design of layout with images, ads etc. Currently our marketing dept wants to spruce things up, and I am finding it difficult to implement new design elements and keep things looking good and balanced when the page is resized (expanded). A fix width is definitely better the more you start requiring a specific design or layout of elements in your page.

I’ve noticed this evolution over the years as some big content sites like CNET have migrated from a variable width to a more fixed width layout. The bigger and more commercial CNET became, the more vibrant and design oriented the site became. With so many design elements, they switched to a more fix width layout because they need precise control over the look.

I may switch to fix width and use variable width for data listings etc. A blend in my situation is probaly best.

I know that print and the internet are different. But when it comes to longer blog posts, the human eye already has trouble with text blocks wider than 5 physical inches. In fact, most people prefer the width of a paperback novel, whose text block is about 3.5 inches – for a very good reason. A liquid design always forces me to narrow the browser width.

What’s more, the eye needs a certain amount of “leading” (space between lines) to follow a large block of text without getting tired or bored. The amount of leading should be proportional to the width of the text block. This does not happen in current liquid designs.

If your visitors aren’t coming back, and you tend to have long posts, this might be why. I’m not saying that all of my blogs are easily readable, but I’m trying – mainly by not using liquid design whenever possible.

I was actually wondering about this the other day. I almost never run more than one thing on my screen at once. Right now I am on my laptop with 1024×768, but I also run single and dual 19″ monitors on my desktops. The only time I ever have two windows visible is if I need to copy something out of the one. I guess I am weird.

The factor being compared is line-length. The downfall of fluid layouts (don’t like “liquid” personally) is that they may extend the line length too far. The reason for the comparison to newspapers is because there IS an optimal line length. Reading text that extends too far has bee proven to be more difficult. There is a body of usability research on this for the computer case.

However, a fluid or elastic layout can stretch multiple content pods, not just the main pod, which is usually the culprit of the long line length – having a fixed left nav bar and sidebar but expanding content area. Argiung that all fluid designs are like this isn’t accurate, even though they are common.

Personally, I like fluid designs, but find them difficult to implement well in CSS. The ideal design does not collapse on itself but may float or wrap secondary elements as necessitated by the browser size.

Here is a great resource for for this topic: http://www.positioniseverything.net/articles/onetruelayout/

In spirit I agree with this, but practically I don’t worry too much about people with resolutions below 800×600 anymore, although my sites are generally liquid. When people get really hardcore and say you should *always* do this or that, I wonder if their site works for minitel phones from France or Imax screens :)

The best answer anyone can give is to know your audience as much as possible, and then work out the best trade-off between your business goals, your readers technology and abilities and your particular contents needs.

There is no single answer here.

However, I hardly know anyone who has a screen width of more than 1280 pixel and uses the browser fullscreen as standard. They all have various windows parallel. And resizing the browser shouldn’t be a mayor problem.

But I have to admit, fixed design can be a lot easier for design, at least until you are getting used to liquid design.

However, with a growing number of mobile devices I think the future could result in a growing number of smaller screen resolutions. that can be a real problem…

Regards,
Holger

I have another blog (but there’s been no posts on this blog) for my father-in-law’s business at http://CorydonClock.com/blog/ .. I always liked that template, because you can ‘toggle’ away the right and left columns to make the center text full screen wide. With some CSS tweaking .. I always thought I could manage to make this into a better liquid type of design.

I personally use 1152 x 864 screen, but when I started I tried to design or modify my designs so it would look good on 800 x 600. Over time, it was a good plan, because my statistics are also showing a substantial amount of readers using this resolution. This includes my parents. However, when I went to my parents computer, not only is their screen set for 800×600, they use extra large text and the window menus are extra large. You still have to scroll side to side to see a simple 400 px wide picture! I don’t get it. I think that’s why I now prefer the liquid method – to just fit the screen viewing it.

Also: there was a couple mentions of comparing blog designs to newspaper layouts .. I just can’t see how that can be compared at all, it’s like apples and pancakes. I think I would prefer more spaces horizontally between paragraphs, than spaces vertically inbetween columns.

Liquid all the way.

Fixed is for webmasters who are too lazy to create and test a good design (which is myself sometimes) and users who are too lazy to resize their 19″ cinema display.

Giving Users a Choice = Good Webmastering

I’ve got to take issue with this comment because its not a matter of being lazy but a matter of skill, and although in the old days I had liquid sites, with blogging its a lot harder to get your blog to work well with liquid templates and looking good as well. For the 98% of us its far easier, simpler and more practical to go fixed, if it was easier more people would go liquid.

The established principles of usability should govern and they include readability. Visitors don’t like reading more than X number of words per line, and they aren’t mad on acres of white space either.

On sites where I have a large readership I go with Liquid within min and max parameters – especially for text. We have to pay attention to the Lowest Common Denominator. We all know sites look not great when rendered too wide or too narrow but it’s our job to give the visitors the best experience they can have, regardless of our own screens.

With Web 2.0 and fashion, Type is getting bigger, and increasingly more users alter their browsers so they get to choose what size text, and sometimes images, are. I myself – when in leisure mode – view News and Entertainment sites on Opera at 150% from a non working distance. Absolute fixed widths mess with the choice of me – the user.

I say let the content determine the design. Large amounts of text such as articles usually dictate a fixed width design while large amounts of dynamic content chunks like you see in online shopping carts tend to lean towards liquid designs.

Layout breaks up only on design focused sites; for example promotional microsites or image heavy sites. Sites that are targetted at delivering large amounts of content ARE vastly more efficient with a variable width. If the layout of a page is bothersome at a large resolution the solution is a simple browser resize.

Sites should ALWAYS. Read again ALWAYS be designed with the lowest common denominator in mind. This is something that the uber-computer-savvy often forget, assuming that the majority of users are on two 1280.1024 monitors or run resolutions above 1024 pixels wide.

Having said that most of my sites are of fixed width except one. The fixed width sites are that way to preserve tight design requirements, the variable width site presents large amounts fo text.

Side Note: If you have a data intensive site, try to include a print this page function.

My question is “Do you think that fixed width earns more than liquid? Or vice versa? ”

I am not sure yet, and we are testing it with a couple of sites.

What impact does your website design have on your advertising performance? It has a whole lot to do with it and I’ll show you why. First off let’s tackle the actual size of your website. Size has a double meaning…