4 ms·

Just because my horizontal resolution is around 1200, I am not on a tablet. It's amazing how many websites are incredibly unusable when displayed 2-up on my 27

Just because my horizontal resolution is around 1200, I am not on a tablet. It's amazing how many websites are incredibly unusable when displayed 2-up on my 27" monitor. There's so much screen estate, but I often literally have to resize the window to fullscreen to find a search or login field.

MivLives 6y ago
This is the worst when you're displaying two sites side by side on a 1080p screen.
- Kuraj 6y ago
  This drives me up the wall. You would think it's such a common scenario!
  - MivLives 6y ago
    It's one of the reasons I have a vertical monitor. 1080 horizontal doesn't seem to trip it.
  - mrweasel 6y ago
    We use a web-based time tracking system that appears to assume that you're either on a device with a touch screen, or have an ultra wide display. You can't easily scroll side to side without touch, so the second best option is full screen on a ultra wide screen, so you don't need to scroll. I long advocated that website started to use the more of the width of the screen on desktops, to avoid unnecessary scrolling. However, I just a frequently have two windows next to each other. There's no real good way of satisfying all use cases, but it generally seems like desktops are being neglected when company design websites. Previously mobile seemed to be hacked on to an existing site, now everyone seems to go the route of: If it's good enough for mobile, it's good enough for desktop users.
- robertoandred 6y ago
  At what horizontal resolution?
  - t-writescode 6y ago
    960x980. 1920x1080 in half. It’s a regular problem I run in to.
iamben 6y ago
It's a difficult one though - say I have left menu, and a sidebar on the right, and a central column with my copy. Very roughly, at about ~1350px (so neatly displayed on a generic 1440 laptop) I have about 250*2 (500px) for my sidebars, about 800px for my central column, which at a decent font size will give me a 'right-ish' about of words per line, and a few more pixels for gutters. As you start to make that smaller - 1200, 1100, something has to change. We can maybe adjust the font size in the main column, maybe there's some flexibility to shrink the sidebars (but maybe there isn't, because we need an ad in there, and that can't be resized). So we have to adjust - lose a sidebar to a hamburger menu, or change our horizontal menu at the top to include the most clicked links (and not the ten links we have before). Maybe the search bar becomes an icon, because it's more important we push the "Buy Now" button than give people an option to search, etc etc. It's an art - what do people need the most? What will make them convert? What can we remove first? What resolutions are most used, and how do we optimise for that?
- ThePadawan 6y ago
  I see your point, and I'm not complaining about that. As you point out: > Maybe the search bar becomes an icon (...) I'd already be ecstatic about that. I'm talking about features which are essential to a website that just disappear completely because the owner thinks "no one on a tablet will ever want to use this".
  - iamben 6y ago
    Haha, yes, it's definitely a balancing act! Thankfully analytics and heatmaps are a good start to figuring this out (even without applying common sense fundamentals)!

MivLives 6y ago

This is the worst when you're displaying two sites side by side on a 1080p screen.

Kuraj 6y ago
This drives me up the wall. You would think it's such a common scenario!
- MivLives 6y ago
  It's one of the reasons I have a vertical monitor. 1080 horizontal doesn't seem to trip it.
- mrweasel 6y ago
  We use a web-based time tracking system that appears to assume that you're either on a device with a touch screen, or have an ultra wide display. You can't easily scroll side to side without touch, so the second best option is full screen on a ultra wide screen, so you don't need to scroll. I long advocated that website started to use the more of the width of the screen on desktops, to avoid unnecessary scrolling. However, I just a frequently have two windows next to each other. There's no real good way of satisfying all use cases, but it generally seems like desktops are being neglected when company design websites. Previously mobile seemed to be hacked on to an existing site, now everyone seems to go the route of: If it's good enough for mobile, it's good enough for desktop users.
robertoandred 6y ago
At what horizontal resolution?
- t-writescode 6y ago
  960x980. 1920x1080 in half. It’s a regular problem I run in to.

iamben 6y ago

It's a difficult one though - say I have left menu, and a sidebar on the right, and a central column with my copy. Very roughly, at about ~1350px (so neatly displayed on a generic 1440 laptop) I have about 250*2 (500px) for my sidebars, about 800px for my central column, which at a decent font size will give me a 'right-ish' about of words per line, and a few more pixels for gutters. As you start to make that smaller - 1200, 1100, something has to change. We can maybe adjust the font size in the main column, maybe there's some flexibility to shrink the sidebars (but maybe there isn't, because we need an ad in there, and that can't be resized). So we have to adjust - lose a sidebar to a hamburger menu, or change our horizontal menu at the top to include the most clicked links (and not the ten links we have before). Maybe the search bar becomes an icon, because it's more important we push the "Buy Now" button than give people an option to search, etc etc. It's an art - what do people need the most? What will make them convert? What can we remove first? What resolutions are most used, and how do we optimise for that?

ThePadawan 6y ago
I see your point, and I'm not complaining about that. As you point out: > Maybe the search bar becomes an icon (...) I'd already be ecstatic about that. I'm talking about features which are essential to a website that just disappear completely because the owner thinks "no one on a tablet will ever want to use this".
- iamben 6y ago
  Haha, yes, it's definitely a balancing act! Thankfully analytics and heatmaps are a good start to figuring this out (even without applying common sense fundamentals)!