How are you viewing this post today? I don’t mean ‘what browser are you using?’, I’m interested in what device you are viewing this post from. If I’d asked this question just a handful of years ago, it would have been a fair bet that you were using a desktop or laptop computer and that might well still be the case today. However, now there are more options for you to choose from: tablet, smart phone, smart TV, games console, the list is growing. The point is, the options today for internet browsing are many and varied, especially when compared with trends over the last decade.

With these movements in internet browsing, trends in website design must move also. The ‘classic’ website (and by classic, I’m really talking about sites designed within the last ten years) had a standard width of 960 pixels (the little squares that make up the pictures on our devices’ screens). This width was generally accepted as the standard resolution of the majority of screens in those days. Before long, wide-screen monitors began to fall into common use and as developers it was up to us to accommodate these wider resolutions. Again, the commonly accepted practice was to keep the sites using a fixed width of 960 pixels, which on wider screens would become a fixed central column. Now we had websites that looked good both on ‘standard’ and wide displays. Continue reading →