What screen size to design for?
The traditional question for web designers to ask before starting a project is, what screen size should we design for? The answer usually comes from looking at a table of browser statistics showing the screen sizes that web users currently own.
The problem with this approach is that users don’t always size their web browser windows to fill their screens. Actually, many users do, but they shouldn’t — especially with ever-increasing screen sizes. After all, the purpose of a large screen is not to let you view one thing at a time, with more empty space around it — it’s to let you view more things at one time. It’s just like a large desk or workbench that lets you spread out several documents or tools for easy access. Most people don’t buy large desks so they can read large pieces of paper, but so they can lay out several pieces of paper side by side.
To accommodate this, web designers should not view their job as “how to fill up those big screens.” Instead, they should design a site at the smallest reasonable size and then let users arrange that how they wish within their workspace.
An even better approach is to design a site that can automatically expand and contract to correspond to the user’s window (not screen) size. If a user wants to view a number of smaller windows, the site will look good; if a user wants to view just one large window, the site will also look good. This is called “liquid design,” and although most designers don’t approach their work in this way, I always advocate for it. “Fixed” designs are still more popular, but with computing devices ranging from 40″ flat-panel displays to 2.4″ phones, I’m hoping more designers come to realize that the best person to decide what size to make the site is the end user.