2 of 5

Write now Article Tools

Screen resolution and page design plays a big role in webpage accessibility these days.
Advancing technologies have made it possible for various electronic devices to access the World Wide Web from just about anywhere. People may even be viewing your site from a cell phone these days!

The oldest question in the book is: "What screen resolution should I design my page for?". It is an irrelevant and outdated question because there is no "standard" screen resolution anymore. People browse the web on TV screens, Blackberries, cell phones and laptops in addition to the standard personal computer set up that we are all used to.

It's just plain silly to design a site that is only compatible with the "most common" screen resolution. In doing this you are limiting the number of users/ visitors that can properly view your site.

Rather than building your site for a specific resolution you should build your site to fit all the possible resolutions. This can now be done by building a fluid layout for your website without tables.

With CSS (cascading style sheets) you can eliminate the need for tables and you can specify percentage widths and heights that will expand and contract to fit the users screen resolution. It is best to optimize web pages for the largest resolution (1024x768) and to also use a liquid layout that stretches well for any resolution.

I personally love to use CSS for the design and layout of my sites because it saves me the repetition of changing the format of every page when my layout changes. Also, in CSS I can specify object widths, fonts, etc. in terms of percentages to make my pages expand and contract to fit the resolutions of my users.

CSS is the future of visual/ graphic page design and it is the best way to easily make your pages accessible to a wide range of users.

- You can visit the CSS Zen Garden (http://www.csszengarden.com/) and get free templates to implement on your site.

- For more CSS resources you can visit:
http://www.w3schools.com /css/

- If you want to play with some basic CSS codes visit:
http://www.w3schools.com /css/tryit.asp?filename=trycss _color

Learn more about this author, Talina Norris.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

Add your voice

Know something about Web design tips: Fitting all monitor resolutions?
We want to hear your view. Write now!