Design for people, not hardware
Another major online site is making the mistake of designing their website for the computing hardware users have, instead of the users themselves. You may have heard about the recent NYTimes.com redesign requiring users to have their browsers over 990 pixels wide to view content without horizontal scrolling. (requires free registration)
“We have expanded the page to take advantage of the larger monitors now used by the vast majority of our readers.”
Of course major site redesigns are generally good efforts, but often teams get too excited about the “big screens” that they have, and don’t pay attention to how users actually interact with websites, email programs and other files they have access to on their computers.
They assume that they can monopolize the user’s screen with their application, when most people are multi-taskers. On small screens it can be preferable to maximize a window to better see an entire document, but when a user has a 21 inch, or in my case a 23 inch monitor, they tend to have a browser on one side of the screen, email on another and other apps strategically placed for easy access. Maximizing a screen on my monitor is a HUGE waste of space.
Even Bill Gates relates how he organizes his work in different areas of his screen real estate in his recent “How I Work” article on Fortune/CNNMoney.com. (Which has a great “flex” layout itself) Given he has 3 screens, but the concept is still the same. ;-) On the left, his email application with all emails listed. In the center, the email he is currently reading, and on the right side, a web browser. Seems like Microsoft.com itself mandates over 900 pixels, with business sub-sites continuing that width, but consumer sites narrow, most under 800 pixels wide.
My old company Dell, has gone to an extra-wide width, over 990 pixels wide. They do try to minimize the issue by having most of the active product area of the page in the space under 800 pixels, and an expanded “log in” shopping cart area in the extra width. I’m still not sure it’s the best execution. I believe it’s arrogant to require that much screen real estate to interact with a commerce application. It’s like having to stop thinking about anything but McDonalds when you are in their restaurant.
In late 2002, I was consulting on online strategy for a major semiconductor manufacturer. Their website was a “liquid” or flexible layout, with a minimum width (to avoid horizontal scrolling) of approximately 800 pixels. There was a push to expand the minimum width to over 900 pixels wide to “take advantage of larger monitors”. This didn’t smell right to me. I referenced Jakob Nielsen’s Law of Web User Experience:
Users spend most of their time on other sites. Thus, anything that is a convention and used on the majority of other sites will be burned into the users’ brains and you can only deviate from it on pain of major usability problems.
I then researched the top sites in popularity and the company’s major competitors: NONE of them had a width of greater than 800 pixels. So the point was that most of the users of their site would have to resize their browsers when they visited a site that was 900 pixels. Not the best customer experience.I advised them against that move and suggested other options to meet their business objectives. They have since gone to a “flex” layout.
Flexible layouts are the most courteous to users, while still giving the business the real estate to share product/service information. From a visual and interface design perspective, they are usually more difficult to design successfully, but be sure to take a look at your user’s workflow and not just their hardware when you are thinking about your site’s design. Be as courteous as possible, your customers will thank you for it.
Have a great day!
Charlie
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