Alertbox: Screen Resolution and Page Layout
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I just noticed that a couple of weeks ago our good friend Jakob Nielsen wrote an Alertbox article about Screen Resolution and Page Layout.
| Jakob Nielsen wrote: |
| Your pages should work at any resolution, from 800x600 to 1280x1024 and beyond.
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Are there any other notable usability people who blog or post free articles? The only ones I've found hardly ever update their sites.
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My CV type thing and my Life of Ben (Blog). Nigel Peck's Accessify Forum Requirements.
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Interesting Alertbox article from Nielson. I'm strongly in favour of liquid layouts, but have been in environments where fixed (and table-based) widths were the norm and so had to deal with those as well.
I was a little bit surprised by this statement:
| Jakob Nielsen wrote: |
| Big monitors are the easiest way to increase white-collar productivity, and anyone who makes at least $50,000 per year ought to have at least 1600x1200 screen resolution. A flat-panel display with this resolution currently costs less than $500. So, as long as the bigger display increases productivity by at least 0.5%, you'll recover the investment in less than a year. |
And by the additional reference to reports:
| Jakob Nielsen wrote: |
| Apple and Microsoft have both published reports that attempt to quantify the productivity gains from bigger monitors. Sadly, the studies don't provide credible numbers because of various methodological weaknesses. My experience shows estimated productivity gains of 5-10% when users do knowledge work on a big monitor. |
Are these productivity statistics at all accurate? Nielsen makes reference to "knowledge work", by which maybe he means website work? -- which maybe I can understand. But in general, these kinds of statistics seem hard to swallow. I can understand that there might be productivity gains in using a screen resolution that most websites are now optimized for (1024x768), but I can't imagine that average white collar workers generally need to have 1600x1200 screens right now, in August 2006. Big screens are nice, sure, but there are tons of people who are very happy with 1024x768 or 1280x1024 screen resolutions, and whose monitors are not physically large enough to allow for higher resolutions without making website graphics and whatnot difficult to read. Aren't there any studies that show how upgrading most white collar staff computers reduces productivity by making them relearn new systems? Or giving them computers that play cool 3D games and display bandwidth-hog-internet-flash sites will reduce the bottom line?
Is this "research" and "experience" referenced by Nielsen real, or is it simply the bias of someone in the high-tech sector?
(This is not a rhetorical question, I really don't know this research and haven't seen it before, and now I'm curious.)
Phil.
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In his "Designing Web Usability" book, which I got as a birthday present in June 2006, he gives a lot more background to many of the claims which appear in Alertbox. I havn't known him to make an unsubstantiated claim without making that clear in the text. The study he references in the book is from PC/Computing from June 1999:
| Jakob Nielsen wrote: |
| [The study] concluded that 19-inch displays on average provide a 17 percent productivity increase over 17-inch displays. |
Personally, having moved from a 15" monitor to this 19" monitor in 2001 I can really appreciate the productivity benefits of using a bigger monitor with a bigger desktop size. I run Firefix at 1024 x 1072, which lets me see lots of content on screen at once without getting horizontal scrolling or too much wasted width when viewing most inflexible websites. Using a 1024 x 768 browser now feels like keyhole surgery to me because the window is so short.
It also gives me nearly 600 x 1200 pixels to the side where I can have IM conversations with clients, edit CSS for a page I'm currently viewing in Firefox, etc. I also get 125 pixels along the top where I can stack up the title bars of lesser-used windows such as e-mail, "View Source" and FTP. I maximise some windows, normally when using a programming IDE, working with images, working with many files in an MDI, or doing tasks using grid controls like managing my bookmarks.
With this screen I can use a double-height taskbar without losing much workspace. This lets me have lots more items in the Quick Launch, as well as some folder buttons. And there's still space to easily get a dozen windows listed in there, which I sometimes need when doing GTA modding and other complex tasks.
Having all this space makes managing several tasks at once much easier, and makes it possible to work with much more complicated data and perform much more complicated tasks (knowledge work?). I can get a lot more done and do it to a higher standard thanks to having a big(ish) screen.
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My CV type thing and my Life of Ben (Blog). Nigel Peck's Accessify Forum Requirements.
Last edited by Ben Millard on 16 Aug 2006 12:56 pm; edited 1 time in total
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| Cerbera wrote: |
| I can get a lot more done and do it to a higher standard thanks to having a big(ish) screen. |
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Jack Pickard The Pickards Information Services| Blog | Twit
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Exactly Next to my 1440x900 mac at home is a 1024x768 panel which I keep chat windows / iTunes / ftp etc etc on. Leaves my main monitor free for Firefox + Textwrangler. I'm trying to pursuade people to get me a second video card at work so I can do the same thing there._________________
Web Developer, Kyanmedia
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| Cerbera wrote: |
| The study he references in the book is from PC/Computing from June 1999: |
I didn't find any of the actual studies available for free online, nor could I locate an online copy of the PC/Computer article, but here are a couple links to additional info covering the same topic:
"Meet the life hackers"
by Clive Thompson
New York Times Magazine
October 16, 2005
http://www.tjm.org/...
Two Screens Are Better Than One
by Suzanne Ross
http://research.microsoft.com/...
Phil.
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I wonder if these performance increases hold true for people who use alt + tab and ctrl + tab regularly.
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That's what I did in the 15" monitor. It's much faster when you can just point and click, though. The biggest benefits I find are from seeing more data on the screen at once, and making "comparitive tasks" faster by using more than one window side by side._________________
My CV type thing and my Life of Ben (Blog). Nigel Peck's Accessify Forum Requirements.
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I agree that having a larger screen yields increased productivity, but the web is just windows, and screen resolution is no indication of a window's size.
I use a 19" monitor running at 1280x1024, but still, I typically browse in windows about 900 pixels square. This is the same whatever resolution I'm on - I have my browser windows about the same size.
I think 800x600 is a reasonable baseline for screen media layout, and this will not change in the foreseeable future, if ever.
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If just you mean that the design should look alright at this size but maybe deteriorate below it, I agree with you.
Users might Tile Vertically a pair of browser windows to compare prices. Opera users might do this to a couple of tabs. If the browser is maximised on a 1280 pixel wide screen, each window will be 640 pixels wide. Users might browse with a sidebar open (such as the History), which typically reduces the viewport width by a couple of hundred pixels.
A layout can normally collapse far below 800 pixels wide without much extra effort. Using overflow: hidden; on the main layout containers is sometimes all it needs. This extra flexibility gives users the choice of getting more out of their browser and monitor.
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My CV type thing and my Life of Ben (Blog). Nigel Peck's Accessify Forum Requirements.
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| Cerbera wrote: |
| If just you mean that the design should look alright at this size but maybe deteriorate below it, I agree with you. |
Exactly.
I am slightly bothered by the trend to have layouts which force horizontal scrollbars below 1024x768 (ALA being a prime example) - I think this trend is based on the false beliefe that the lowest practical design size will gradually increase over time, as was the case for color depth; it won't.
| Cerbera wrote: |
| Using overflow: hidden; on the main layout containers is sometimes all it needs. This extra flexibility gives users the choice of getting more out of their browser and monitor. |
That's true, but be very careful - some uses of hidden overflow can make parts of the content completely inaccessible, to some users some of the time.
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Good to see this being addressed and made up to date. Wasnt this the most frequently asked question at one time?
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I was rummaging through my bookmarks and noticed that our very own Alastair Campbell wrote about layouts. Looks like Nielsen isn't the only usability professional who advises flexibility of layout. He mentions about how high-resolution screens (lots of pixels per pixel) need to use bigger text sizes (more pixels per em), which is likely to become a growing factor as the price of hi-res screens continues to fall.
Also, two other strange thing have happened: people have been agreeing with something said by Nielsen (1), and not getting flamed for doing so (2).
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My CV type thing and my Life of Ben (Blog). Nigel Peck's Accessify Forum Requirements.
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does not wcag1.0 3.2 state not to use fixed units, and therefore not fixed width?
...or am i raising the whole pts, px argument again?
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http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1995/Ukpga_19950050_en_8.htm#mdiv57
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| jim barter wrote: |
| does not wcag1.0 3.2 state not to use fixed units, and therefore not fixed width? |
| jim barter wrote: |
| ...or am i raising the whole pts, px argument again? |
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Jack Pickard The Pickards Information Services| Blog | Twit
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