Designing for the New Resolution
This year my exposure to different resolutions has altered the way I’ve been thinking about designing for the web. Its a lot more complicated than the paradigm of a few years ago when we could work with the expectation our users used either 1024 x 768 or 800 x 600 resolution on their monitor. This year I’ve been exposed to everything from the various mobile platforms right up to my brand new 22 inch wide screen running an optimal resolution in the 1400 to 1600 range.
The interesting part of these larger screens are that even though we couldn’t count on users running full screen browser windows before, its obvious we can just about guarantee they won’t be running them now. This makes me wonder what the answer is to a lot of questions including the optimal size of font for accessible web development.
About 5 years ago my partner was using 800 x 600 on her computer and I put it up to 1024 x 768 to complaints of tiny text. Now I’m seeing users who opt for higher resolutions which make the standard ‘accessible’ sized text look miniscule. In my opinion many of the people who shouted the loudest about tiny text only a year ago might want to have a look on the greater resolutions being used now. Jack up your resolution and have a surf of the web to those very sites.
The larger font-size used on this latest iteration of StevenClark.com.au is intended to provide some level of readability for that larger resolution audience. Just as we did when people moved up through the lower resolutions.
October 23rd, 2007 at 8:06 am
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