BE
SURE YOU GET FULL
VALUE FROM YOUR WEBSITE DESIGNER
Technical
Details
A
Tale of Two Pixels Like televisions, computer
monitors
display their images using hundreds and thousands of small picture
elements called "pixels". Pixels light up in different
colours and shades to suit the image on screen at the time.
Each pixel is made up of three colour emitters, red, green, and blue
that combine to give the colours we need. It takes some high
level technology to make these complex little pixels smaller and
smaller.
Regardless of the physical size of the
screen (14, 15, 17, or 19 inch) each monitor displays a standard number
of pixels.
Early colour monitors could manage
only 640 pixels across the width of the screen, because older
manufacturing techniques created fairly big clusters of red, green and
blue light emitters. Then, as things got better, the number
increased to 800 pixels across the screen.
Improvements
are going on all the time, of course, and soon there were 1024 pixels
across a screen, and now there are more than 2000 of them. Of
course, all these pixels need signals form the computer to light up, so
the more pixels you have, the more computer power you need.
So it's the whole system - not just the screen!
Just
for the moment though, it's fairly simple. There's only two to worry
about. Older computers are running 800 pixel displays, and
newer ones are running at 1024 pixels.
Size
Matters If you create an image that takes up
800 pixels, it
will cover the whole screen width in an old computer or
monitor. When you use a later model computer, because the
pixels are smaller, the image is smaller too. It takes up
only 800 pixels, and there are1024 pixels across the screen.
In short, it's
only 80% as wide as the screen.
This means that
if you design a web page that goes the whole 1024 pixels, something has
to give on an older, 800 pixel computer. What changes, and
how that happens is the key to good web design.
See
what's on the table Good web designs use
graphics that can
adjust to different layouts in their stride, and don't need scroll
bars. It takes skill and time to achieve this, and good
companies do achieve it. Then there is the cheap
approach.
In 1996, the use of tables
became popular to give form and structure to webpages. Now,
it is recognised that such designs are quite inflexible, and of limited
use, but they are
cheap if the code already exists.
First,
the coder makes a table that consists of just one row and one
column. It is set at a width of 100% of screen
size. That will fill every screen, and can have a coloured or
textured background. Inside this single cell table, and at
its centre, the coder places another table that has your design in
it. It has a fixed width of about 780 pixels, and everything
is constrained to fit this smaller table. On a 1024 pixel
screen, you see blank colour on the sides. On an older
monitor, the image will fill the screen, and there will not be any
scroll bars or any change to the layout.
The
price for this is a small image on most screens now in use,
and considerable inflexibility. It is very difficult and
time consuming to change these pages, except in some
minor details.
What
can you do? First, you need to be sure that
there is nothing on the right hand side of the screen that's so
important a site visitor must see it. Then talk to
your web designer about having the table settings altered to change the
780 pixels (or thereabouts) to 1004 pixels. This will give a
narrow margin of 10 pixels on each side so that the page does not spill
beyond the edge of a poorly adjusted screen.
This
will give you a fixed width display that suites modern machines, and
creates "scroll bars" on older ones. That's a small price to
pay to get a solid, impressive website that gives "whammo" impact on all modern computers!
Remember,
this restructuring job is neither simple or easy - but be prepared to
haggle over price! Remember the "renovation" option.
Alternatively,
seek out a better designer who can create then design you want, but
without the compromise.