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iPad, Netbooks rekindle discussion about screen sizes - 28/01/2010

One of the most controversial subjects among designers here in Brazil (and I imagine this is true in other places), developers as well as other professionals involved in the creation and development of websites is the width used for a page layout. As in all controversies, there are two sides.

On one side, are those that prefer to include all possible users of an interface, so they create narrower layouts, that would fit a 800px wide screen.

On the other side, are those who are avid to explore all the potential that technology has to offer, so they design wider pages that would fill a 1024px screen or even a 1280px one.

Screen resolution statistics are often the arguments used by both sides to defend their points of view. However, most official statistics are not Brazilian and in order to abtain local numbers one has to rely on less formal sources.

Some 2 or 3 years ago, a screen resolution of 800 by 600px was considered to be standard in Brazil and even in Europe and North America. But 1024 by 800px screens were introduced, and gradually increased in number of users, eventually overtaking the number of 800 by 600px screen users.

But, most professionals only started designing pages that were wider that 800px when the old screen size represented such a small number of users that it became obsolete. These professionals were right to wait, because a narrower page will fit both screens, while a wider page will only fit the larger screen.

The pattern that repeats itself in Brazil is that the tendency to adopt a wider page size follows with some delay that of Europe and North America, but eventually we end up reaching the same stage when there’s a transition to wider page layouts.

But, during the last 2 years, a new factor has been thrown into that game, which might change its rules. Consumer’s need for ultra mobile computers and devices drove manufacturers to develop smaller and smaller, accessible, internet specific computers, with consequently small screens. These new computers became known as netbooks and turned out to be very popular.

The present tendency for mobility reversed the movement in the screen size standard. These numbers, which had historically increased, took a step back, bringing back the old discussion about the ideal width for website pages.

Some of the most accessible and popular netbooks have the maximum screen resolution of 800 by 600px like the Asus EEE PC 700 Series and the Intel Classmate PC. Besides that, they have small 7 or 9 inches screens, which make texts on the screen too uncomfortable to read and other graphic elements hard to distinguish.

Also, we’ve recently witnessed even smaller computers that are specialized ebook and newspaper readers, but that also provide internet Access. The two most significative examples are Apple’s iPad and Amazon’s Kindle. The iPad ant the Kindle screens are 768px and 600px wide, respectively.

Presently, the designers and developers that wish to include the netbook users, which are predominantly professionals and students that value mobility very much, should fit their web pages to the 800px width, just like they did 1 or 2 years ago.

Besides the Page width, a lot of attention should be given to the text and other visual elements sizes, so that they will not overload the users: those who are visually challenged as well as those who can see perfectly, but will also get tired of reding tiny letters on 7 inches screens.

The professionals who wish to include iPad, Kindle and other similar devices users should foresee the existing restrictions as to width, touch screen interaction and color limitations of each of these new devices that are arriving at the market.

One other important fact for the netbook users is that the internet access is done through wi-fi or 3G. These users are usually in a hurry and in a public location such as airports, restaurants, etc. Therefore the website loading time should have top priority, because the user will have both a limited amount of time and a limited bandwidth to do what they want or need to in a website.

Websites with heavy, slow-loading pages and functionalities that take too long to work will certainly have a high abandon rate by these users that seek convenience, efficiency and above all mobility.

Those professionals that consider the screen sizes and connection speeds restrictions of their target users will surely create much better user experiences.

Fernando Oliveira
Usability consultant