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Will my website fill the screen?

We often get asked about the width of a website on the screen, and whether it will make the "best use" of the screen.

Horizontal scrollbars are a no-no

Modern computers have a screen resolution of typically 1024, 1280 or even more pixels across the  screen. A pixel is the smallest dot that a screen can show. Many users however, still have screens with only 800 pixels across, or, they set their screens to 800 x 600 so that the text appears larger and more readable (this particularly applies to people past the first flush of youth).

This means that if your website is more than about 750 pixels wide the user will get horizontal scrollbars. Horizontal scrollbars are a no-no (vertical scrolling is OK though).

What about stretchy websites?

Some website, like Google are suited to molten layouts that will stretch everything as the browser is resized. This is because you are reading snippets of text rather than sitting back and reading the whole page.

Most sites are not suited to stretchy text.

The text you are reading is about the right width and has the right leading (space between lines) so that you can scan to the next line easily without losing your place. If this website resized to fit a 1600 pixel wide screen, the text would be very difficult to read indeed. You won't find a newspaper that has body text extending more than a few inches.

OK, what about having some things stretch?

That's fine. We can show you websites we have built with banners, footers and other elements that fill the "empty space". They look great. 

It's a moot point, but why not let the user know where the website stops so that they can resize their browser to make better use of their large screen?

750 is our standard

For these reasons we make all of our websites 750 pixels wide unless you request us to do otherwise.