Confused Between Fixed And Fluid Width Designs?

April 30th, 2010 by Moumita

During the design process of a blog or a website, it is a very important decision in part of the bloggers to choose between a fixed width and fluid width design. And in many cases this choice becomes really confusing, as this is not at all an easy job. Both of the designs have their own pros and cons. So, it is always better to first determine the look and feel you want according to what your site is all about.

Both fixed width design and fluid designs have their own pros and cons. Here are the points that might help you decide between the two designs.

Fixed Designs

PROS

  • One of the most useful positive sides of this design is that it looks the same irrespective of the monitor size and in turn easier to control also. Nothing on the screen gets changed.
  • Another positive aspect of fixed designs is that they are easier to navigate and read. It is more usable as compared to the other one and nothing is stretched out also.

CONS

  • With very small monitors, it might be the situation that you are not able to view the entire site and might end up with horizontal scrollbar for viewing the whole site. Similarly, with very large monitors, there are chances that your site looks too narrow.

Fixed Width Layout in an average screen resolution of 1024 x 768

Fixed Width Layout in an above average screen resolution of 1280 x 1024

Fluid Designs

PROS

  • A fluid design is much easily adaptable and your website becomes a universal one.
  • No screen place is wasted in this case and every fold and space is taken advantage of to the fullest.

CONS

  • The major layout problem with this design is that it looks cluttered very easily with no chances of spreading out. So you hardly get that simple look in this design.
  • The major decision lies in the fact that what your website is all about. Some sites will get an excellent look with fluid layouts, while some other will not work only. So, before the final selection of the design, question yourself in every way about how you want your site to look. Then only you can come up to a perfect selection without any confusion.

Fluid Width Layout in an average screen resolution of 1024 x 768

Fluid Width Layout in an above average screen resolution of 1280 x 1024

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