When it comes to your website, extra attention should be paid to every minute detail to make sure it performs optimally and serves its purpose. Here is the penultimate of ten important rules of thumb to make sure your website performs well.
Don't assume everyone has the same size monitor as you
If you're into web design, or spend a lot of time at your computer, you may have invested in a large, flat screen monitor. It's a worthwhile investment, but not everybody has one. That's why it's important your website can be read by all your visitors without them having to pan across to the left and right using the slider at the bottom of the frame.
I use Google Analytics to track my website visitors, and I've discovered that the majority of them have a screen setting of 1024x768; however, some have a screen size of only 800x600 while others have a massive 1768x992!
You need to make sure your site looks good to all your website visitors, not just the ones who have the same size monitor as you.
Sometimes you'll notice a lot of websites – especially single page “mini sites” – have the content constrained in a table or frame in the center of view. This means the site looks pretty much the same to all web visitors. I find a width of 663 pixels works best. Fill in the remainder of the screen space with a solid color or a repeating graphic. Just make sure it doesn't distract the visitor from the main message of your site.
