Opinions on Width of Page

[saucysal]

Many websites (Debenhams, M&S, etc) and my own, were re-designed a few years ago to have the page on a pc as a narrow central area, not the full width of a large screen. I guess that this was because responsive design did not exist, and it was a way of making the best of a bad job, a compromise for all device/monitor sizes.

Now that we have responsive design, it would appear to me that this narrower page is no longer needed, and by having a design that makes use of the full width of whatever the device or screen size is, would be better. So, though full width designs look old fashioned, they are now the latest thing, I think. It is like retro coming back into fashion.

I have noticed that the Sellerdeck 14 responsive designs are all full width. Perhaps this is why, not Sellerdeck being out-of-date, but Sellerdeck being ahead.

Any opinions on this? I am trying to decide whether to go with a Sellerdeck responsive design as it comes, or whether to edit it to a narrower page. I have looked at all of the two (ha ha) showcase sites, one of which is full width and the other not, but cannot decide. Two of my children who are expert software engineers but not online shoppers, think it should be the narrower page, but two other of my children, who are software illiterate but keen online shoppers, say it doesn't matter, and my husband, who is both illiterate and rarely shops, thinks it should be full screen size as we can then get more products featured on the homepage etc.

Sarah

[Buzby]

I have the thinner version on my websites just like you.

I am looking at going responsive and am currently playing with 2014 prior to redesigning the sites. When I do redesign them I will certainly go for full width.

[Mike Hughes]

I don't think it really matters.

The only thing I'd watch out for is making sure you can fill the space adequately using a full width design. If you don't have lots of content for your products then a full width design could look a bit odd.

I guess the new mantra is big and bold. If you keep the design, images and text big and bold enough then they're easy to see on a small screen and can still fill a large screen.

Mike

[David Clarke]

I used to do a full width design but the problem I had was how text would flow around images. This would change when the width changed and sometimes looked horrible. Unless I fixed the width of a page I could not be sure how it would look on different screens.

I don't know how responsive design copes with this as I have not moved over to it yet.

[saucysal]

Plenty of Content

I have plenty of content to fill the space, so no problem there.

My concern about using any fixed widths is messing up the responsive design. I am being very cautious, as the point of the present exercise is to get the responsive design working well on mobiles, but still good on a pc.

If I increase font sizes from the out-of-the-box sizes, will this mess with the wrd on mobiles? Many of our customers are elderly and would appreciate larger text. I shall have a play around tonight.

Sarah

[mediamole]

I have noticed that the Sellerdeck 14 responsive designs are all full width. Perhaps this is why, not Sellerdeck being out-of-date, but Sellerdeck being ahead.

Any opinions on this? I am trying to decide whether to go with a Sellerdeck responsive design as it comes, or whether to edit it to a narrower page.

Sarah

Most mobile designs go full width. It all comes down to design really. Using the default designs in 2014 the wireframe theme is better to customise

This 2014 site I did is a mixture of both where the header goes full width, while content is in centre http://www.coastalsoles.co.uk/

[saucysal]

Yes, very neat

I saw your design in the Showcase sites (one of two sites!). It is good - uncluttered, stylish, to the point. Thanks.

Sarah

[fergusw]

To chip in from a design point of view, we've found the best solution to be full width on mobile and medium devices up to about 1024 pixels wide, then after that we tend to keep the page content fixed width at about that size (centred or otherwise), although certain elements in the header and footer might stretch full width most of the content within them will remain in the same area.

With responsive design it pays to be as flexible as possible, as you don't want to be providing pixel by pixel layout fixes for every possible device between 320 and 1024 pixels wide and if you go even higher than that then it's even more work to adjust your page elements for the best fit!

For example on super wide screens, product or brochure pages with sparse text will start to look a bit odd as a nice paragraph suddenly becomes 2 or 3 very long lines which can be fiddly for customers to read. And yes you can fit more products on to the page, but your customer will also have to do a lot more horizontal scanning if your product grid stretches right across the page.

Just a few things to think about!