[didgy]

Hi Folks we have a bit of a debate occuring in the company i work for, mainly between the boss (non designer/coder) and us webdesigner/coders. all to do with screen real estate.

now our screen that we show prespective clients any type of design is of a resolution of 1024 * 768, we tend to create sites, that are slightly smaller in width, but lately our boss seems to disagree with any type of design that doesnt fit onto one page!! meaning they dont want to have to scroll down as well as scroll across, now the scrolling across i understand as its something i must admit we try our hardest to stop as this is the worst kind of scroll in my opinion, but surely the market out there is used to scrolling down aint they? whats your verdict on this? one of the designs we just templated out looked superb just the bottom navigation ( which was just about us, contact us) didnt appear on the screen and you had to scroll down a little to get to it, the boss didnt like this, i have to ask what are your thoughts on this kind of thing

sometimes its near impossible to make a page fit into one single screen without having the need to scroll as some pages contain that much content, but this must be the norm and end users are surely used to this by now and accept it. surely a page full of (relevant information) is better than one containing only 3 - 4 lines!!!

well let me know your thoughts and feelings on this kind of thing

[BlueDreamer]

You can never predict what size someones screen resolution or web browser is set to, and consequently you can never assume any page will "fit" without scrolling. Think of all those toolbars people have, I've seen some browsers that have three or four extra toolbars that push the viewport down 200 pixels or more!

People are used to scrolling downwards, and it's pretty safe to assume that every web user expects to do so. Sideways scrolling is another matter though and best avoided for the average Joe where you can.

Tell your boss to get over it - if trying to fit pages to screens was important everyone would be trying to do it!

As for bottom main navigation, that's a bad idea from the start. Apart from the potential accessibility issues (unless you position that way with CSS) people are used to looking for main navigation at the top of the page.

[eCenica]

Creating a page that does not need to scroll is very very dated.

Pre-dot-com-bubble, it was thought punters would not realise they could scroll down. Therefore missing important info. And with the popularity of apps like Flash, the first wave of graphic designers, who were more used to flyer, brochure designs were in their element when it came to creating sites that fit the screen. I have loads of graphic designer mates who still find it hard to conceptualise a design that spans the first screen. They like to print their designs on to A3 to demo to the client so it limits the design from day-1.

Jump forward to today and everyone knows that you scroll down to view. With that in mind, modern sites now use nifty Javascript/Ajax techniques to cram in as much content on a single page without jeopardising the visitor experience.

Trick, is to place all the important stuff you want your visitor to see right at the top of the design, and secondary info below. So if they don't scroll then they still come away with the main info.

[brendan_qu]

As previously said, always try to put important content at the top! I always try to fit my most important content over an imaginary 700px, or 800px lign, so that the absolute most important stuff is right where the user is from the beginning! Use of headers, and navigation within the page (jumping to spots on the page further down) will also make sure the user gets the most important stuff!

Regards,

Brendan

[hawkhead]

Hi Didgy,

I and many of the users thought is that if you have a site with scroll type of contents, then the users think that this site is worthy and have huge details, if it has no contents to come down they think this site has not much to offer.

In other context, if the details are kept in other pages, the users feel like wasting time to move to internal pages, also the loading time will vary for different users, so they will skip that due to this reason too.

Hence its better to keep more important details in the home page itself and for elaborate details asking them to move to internal pages.

This will stop the bounce rate too.

Hence you need to convince your boss with all these valid reasons.

Application Icons

[didgy]

thanks very much guys, there has been some good suggestions given here and definetly things that i can say that can be brought forward in the next meeting, i especially like brendan_qu comment about the 700px - 800px imaginary line this is something that i will definietly use and suggest that my designer will also use ( as he also does print design for the same company) he does sometimes give stuff on a3 to the client..

thanks again guys great answers

Dan

[lazytycoon]

lol

Quote

Pre-dot-com-bubble, it was thought punters would not realise they could scroll down.

i dont see anything wrong with scrolling, in fact i think horizontal scrolling is fun to see and thats on a design blog, so it must be vouge/>

[nuksies]

so what would be the best width of a page now because 800px is so limiting?

[fruit & veg]

I've had this battle with a non-coding/not-that-web savvy boss before. Bloody annoying.

Tell them to look at amazon, bbc, google, yahoo - these companies spend more money on web usability, accessbility and user feedback than you can imagine and ALL of them have vertical scrolling. End of story. If your boss is willing to argue with Amazon's usability budget who's business is 100% reliable on people being easily able to buy stuff, then he's either a genius or an idiot.

[wizely]

Shoot all bosses I say!
I'll tell you one thing coming from the content end of the spectrum... it's much easier and more effective to sell by having longer copy that scrolls down rather than break it up into teeny-weeny bits over loads of pages or in cool little Ajax tabs or what-not.
Some of the main reasons for this are:
1. Each shift jolts the reader's attention
2. Users are much more adverse to clicking into the unknown then they are scrolling through
3. Too many elements on a page competing for attention prevent a reader getting 'stuck in'
4. It increases skim-reading and scanning as they click from here to there
5. You have a much harder time guiding the reader through where you want them to go (i.e. building-up an effective sales pitch is hard when they skip to the close before you've laid the groundwork)
6. It shifts attention to the containers not the content
etc.
I know that throwing as much as possible at the reader at the same time and in the shortest space seems like the best idea (you'd definitely think so from a lot of sites out there!) but I'm just talking in terms of selling. Of course there's always a balance and it depends on what you're selling and to who. But longer sales copy does tend to out perform shorter in most cases.
Show that to your boss! (only take the first sentence out first eh?!!! )