The argument concerning the design of certain screen resolutions has been quite tame in the past few years compared to the fixed versus fluid debate. If designers claim a platform is designed or configured for a specific screen size, the size of the user display is specifically addressed. During the past, the discussion over screen resolution was about whether or not our designs were the monitor resolutions 800×600 will continue to be accommodated without a horizontal scrollbar.

This is now believed to have at least 1024×768 web browsers. Also most netbook computers have a 1024×600 resolution or higher. This is why 960px has de facto become the standard for most web design projects. With W3Schools announcing the growth of users with more than 1024 resolutions, you might expect us to expand the default width past 960, but it probably doesn’t happen, there are a couple of explanations. Next, users with bigger monitors often maintain less than 1024px of the width of their browser window, enabling them to view other applications they run. The other is the length of the line. When a text line is too long, it is less legible. Therefore, we can only simply add more columns with a bigger default layout width.

Although desktop browser statistics such as W3Schools support our use of 960x layouts, they neglect a large portion of the population in web browsing: smartphone users. Quoting the same article that I stated earlier on, mobile browsing will outsource desktop based access in 3 to 5 years time. As the resolution of mobile screens increases and mobile browsers meet their relative desktop, it is safe to assume that your website design is readable on modern mobile devices. In your browser testing, you must still include popular mobile devices; However; shouldn’t we have to check them on mobile browsers, if we struggle to make sites we design look right in IE7?

When mobile use is increased a little more, more and more websites offer mobile versions of their pages; this of course means that mobile pages are also being sought by more and more consumers. This was an arduous job for managing mobile languages such as WML and surprising, incompetent browsers.

Fortunately, today ‘s design of a mobile-optimized website mainly involves upgrading your layout to work on mobile screens and making it shine through the bonus functions of the OS. Anything you do will be the guiding force behind all your decisions at the end of the day, regardless of what you are doing.