Advantages and disadvantages of fluid web pages
The advantages of a flexible design include:
You don’t need to worry about choosing a target monitor resolution.
The whole window is filled, without the potentially awkward empty space left over by many fixed-width designs.
Designing liquid pages is in keeping with the spirit and the nature of the medium. A “good” web page design by these standards is one that is functional to the greatest number of users.
Keep in mind, though, these potential pitfalls of a flexible design:
On large monitors, the text line length can get out of hand when the text fills the width of the browser. Long lines of text are particularly uncomfortable to read on a screen. (Note, line length on liquid designs could be controlled by the
max-width
CSS property, but it is not supported by Internet Explorer 6 or earlier. One day, it will be a tool for addressing the line-length issue.)Elements float around on large monitors, making the design less coherent and potentially more difficult to use. Likewise, on very small monitors, elements can get cramped.
The results of flexible design are unpredictable, and users will have varying experiences of your page.
Get Web Design in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.