# On which Ale wishes web designers to pull their collective heads out of their rectum. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 1, 2012, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-which-ale-wishes-web-designers-to-pull-their-collective-heads-out-of-their-rectum/617500 "2012-04-01T18:51:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-which-ale-wishes-web-designers-to-pull-their-collective-heads-out-of-their-rectum/617500/1 "2012-04-01T18:51:19Z")
That’s it, I’m up to _here_ with this crap. Today I go to check my Vimeo page and noticed that I’ve been upgraded to the new design which, following what appears to be today’s trends, uses only the center of the screen and wastes nearly half of the area in trendy white margins. You can open [this link](https://vimeo.com/new?utm_source=newvimeo&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=invite) and see the image on the screen to get an idea of what I’m talking about. What on Og’s blue Earth is this all about? site after site falling for this shit? I’m not asking for cluttered layouts but this… this… ngngngngggkk, (_shits a brick_) _fad_ grates me like fingernails against a blackboard. Now that wide screens are the norm this assholes decide that vertical layouts are the thing, scroll baby, scroll!. Honorary mention to websites that add those top and/OR (asshoooooole!) menu bars full of crap that scroll up and down and therefore eat even more space on the screen, so everything is squeezed between a wasteland of nothingness and sandwiched between menus, ads and social media crap I have absolutely no interest whatsoever to lay my increasingly bloodshot eyes on. Good thing I don’t have a puppy or I’d be kicking it around the room by now. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-which-ale-wishes-web-designers-to-pull-their-collective-heads-out-of-their-rectum/617500/2 "2012-04-01T18:59:29Z")
> [@Ale](#): > > Now that wide screens are the norm this assholes decide that vertical layouts are the thing, scroll baby, scroll! 1. Netbooks have fairly narrow screens. 2. Tablets have narrow screens. 3. Smartphones have extremely narrow screens. 4. Many users of regular PCs still prefer windowing rather than using full-screen mode for everything. 5. It’s easier to read text when lines aren’t very long. This pitting is weak. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-which-ale-wishes-web-designers-to-pull-their-collective-heads-out-of-their-rectum/617500/3 "2012-04-01T19:05:40Z")
The bits at the sides are flexy, and the the bit in the center is constant so the designer has control over how the markup looks. This is infinitely less annoying than having to scroll side to side to read a webpage, or using a layout so anarchic that it looks like crap no matter screenwidth the viewer is using, in the pursuit of making sure that everything goes edge-to-edge. You see this a lot because it is the most practical approach to serving up a page that looks good under a variety of circumstances. If it annoys you particularly, it’s probably because your screen resolution is much higher than average. ---
**Author:** ![Jenaroph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Jenaroph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenaroph)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-which-ale-wishes-web-designers-to-pull-their-collective-heads-out-of-their-rectum/617500/4 "2012-04-01T21:49:43Z")
> [@elmwood](#): > > 1. Tablets have narrow screens. > > 2. Smartphones have extremely narrow screens. These, at least, shouldn’t affect the design of webpages for full-sized computers if the page has a separate optimized design for mobile devices. Which it should, especially for a graphics-heavy site like Vimeo. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-which-ale-wishes-web-designers-to-pull-their-collective-heads-out-of-their-rectum/617500/5 "2012-04-01T22:33:00Z")
> [@Jenaroph](#): > > These, at least, shouldn’t affect the design of webpages for full-sized computers if the page has a separate optimized design for mobile devices. Which it should, especially for a graphics-heavy site like Vimeo. For sure. Because of this, places that track browser statistics ignore mobile devices. Still, if you don’t want your site to be unusably crappy for a significant number of people, you’re going to design for fullscreen 1024X768, with negative space that increases as the resolution increases. If you design to accommodate any higher width, an unacceptably high number of people will have a bad experience with your site. Currently, if you design for any width higher than 1024 pixels, 1 in 5 people will have to scroll side-to-side to read your page. Obviously, variably negative space at the sides is preferable to this. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-which-ale-wishes-web-designers-to-pull-their-collective-heads-out-of-their-rectum/617500/6 "2012-04-01T23:11:43Z")
> [@Jenaroph](#): > > These, at least, shouldn’t affect the design of webpages for full-sized computers if the page has a separate optimized design for mobile devices. Which it should, especially for a graphics-heavy site like Vimeo. That. If you’re using the same stylesheet for mobile as you are for regular clients, you are officially Doing It Wrong. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-which-ale-wishes-web-designers-to-pull-their-collective-heads-out-of-their-rectum/617500/7 "2012-04-02T00:46:05Z")
> [@elmwood](#): > > 1. Netbooks have fairly narrow screens. > > 2. Tablets have narrow screens. > > 3. Smartphones have extremely narrow screens. > > 4. Many users of regular PCs still prefer windowing rather than using full-screen mode for everything. > > 5. It’s easier to read text when lines aren’t very long. > > This pitting is weak. Like the fuck it is. Ever heard of a fucking liquid layout? AS A WEBDEVELOPER it makes me weep for my profession that so many other so called webdevelopers haven’t heard of one either. Basically you divide content into sections, and float them so they automatically arrange themselves to all the screen area. Result: Cell phone happy, wide screen happy, even a fucking jumbo tron size monitor could be accommodated. It’s like a movie that’s both full screen and wide screen, and yet you never miss a detail on either screen. Done right, it is a beautiful thing. It’s what I’m pushing for on the website I develop. Also if liquid layout doesn’t give you your jollys, there’s elastic layout which uses fixed positions for elements relative to each other, but their sizes are based on the screen area. The Straight Dope Message Board uses one. CSS even has provisions for max and min screen area instead so you can make an element never be too small or too big. This stripe in a field of white nonsense is retarded. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-which-ale-wishes-web-designers-to-pull-their-collective-heads-out-of-their-rectum/617500/8 "2012-04-02T00:52:11Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > That. If you’re using the same stylesheet for mobile as you are for regular clients, you are officially Doing It Wrong. Of course - but I don’t recall _ever_ browsing to a site on my PC and finding it optimized for a 320-pixel width, so this is not really relevant to the OP’s complaint. The OP is complaining about a website that looks great at _1440_ pixels wide, because the content doesn’t go from edge to edge of his screen. ---
**Author:** ![MJinks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@MJinks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MJinks)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-which-ale-wishes-web-designers-to-pull-their-collective-heads-out-of-their-rectum/617500/9 "2012-04-02T00:54:43Z")
The new BBC website really annoys me because of this. I have a 24" monitor with a 1920x1200 resolution and half the page is just a white border. Actually the new design is worse in almost every single way. Money well spent! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-which-ale-wishes-web-designers-to-pull-their-collective-heads-out-of-their-rectum/617500/10 "2012-04-02T01:45:25Z")
To be honest I think a lot of is paper interia. When printed media was king formats had to be around 8 x 11 inches, or some other long and narrow ratio. People have been developing long and narrow layouts for hundreds of years and the web is almost 20 yeas old. Big monitors being common is just a few years old. Now they’re refusing to give up their magazine and news paper layouts even though the media is nothing alike. They’re struggling like a very old Amish man trying to use an Android phone for the first time. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-which-ale-wishes-web-designers-to-pull-their-collective-heads-out-of-their-rectum/617500/11 "2012-04-02T02:01:32Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > Like the fuck it is. Ever heard of a fucking liquid layout? AS A WEBDEVELOPER it makes me weep for my profession that so many other so called webdevelopers haven’t heard of one either. Basically you divide content into sections, and float them so they automatically arrange themselves to all the screen area. > > Result: Cell phone happy, wide screen happy, even a fucking jumbo tron size monitor could be accommodated. It’s like a movie that’s both full screen and wide screen, and yet you never miss a detail on either screen. Done right, it is a beautiful thing. It’s what I’m pushing for on the website I develop. > > Also if liquid layout doesn’t give you your jollys, there’s elastic layout which uses fixed positions for elements relative to each other, but their sizes are based on the screen area. The Straight Dope Message Board uses one. CSS even has provisions for max and min screen area instead so you can make an element never be too small or too big. > > This stripe in a field of white nonsense is retarded. Yes, yes indeed. And thank you very much for being a thinking web designer. The idea that all websites should be optimized for mobile platforms, well fuck that with a hedgehog, not only for the layout of a page but in the use of a “fat fingers” user interface meant to be used on a touch screen. And yes, the OP was rather weak, 2AM and a flu will do that to your ranting. ---
**Author:** ![pikey\_pete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pikey\_pete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pikey_pete)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-which-ale-wishes-web-designers-to-pull-their-collective-heads-out-of-their-rectum/617500/12 "2012-04-02T02:08:47Z")
definition of a first world problem. ---
**Author:** ![Covered\_In\_Bees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ab992/32.png) [@Covered\_In\_Bees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Covered_In_Bees)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-which-ale-wishes-web-designers-to-pull-their-collective-heads-out-of-their-rectum/617500/13 "2012-04-02T02:09:37Z")
> [@pikey\_pete](#): > > definition of a first world problem. Okay. So? ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-which-ale-wishes-web-designers-to-pull-their-collective-heads-out-of-their-rectum/617500/14 "2012-04-02T02:47:29Z")
> [@Ale](#): > > The idea that all websites should be optimized for mobile platforms, well fuck that with a hedgehog, not only for the layout of a page but in the use of a “fat fingers” user interface meant to be used on a touch screen. If it makes you feel any better, that _never_ happens. A 1995 website optimized for an 800X600, 15" display would look terrible on the average contemporary display, never mind a site optimized for a phone. If we tried to design pages to look okay on mobile screens _and_ your desktop, you’d find a lot of websites that look like [this](http://m.fark.com/). We don’t do that, because that’s stupid. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-which-ale-wishes-web-designers-to-pull-their-collective-heads-out-of-their-rectum/617500/15 "2012-04-02T03:15:57Z")
> [@Larry\_Mudd](#): > > If it makes you feel any better, that _never_ happens. A 1995 website optimized for an 800X600, 15" display would look terrible on the average contemporary display, never mind a site optimized for a phone. > > If we tried to design pages to look okay on mobile screens _and_ your desktop, you’d find a lot of websites that look like [this](http://m.fark.com/). We don’t do that, because that’s stupid. Interestingly the [desktop version](http://www.fark.com/) doesn’t look much different, a bit more graphics in the content area, navigation bar instead of drop down, light background images and ads. Both use an elastic layout so you get the whole screen experience. You can visually scan a lot more stories than if it was compressed stripe in a field of gray. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-which-ale-wishes-web-designers-to-pull-their-collective-heads-out-of-their-rectum/617500/16 "2012-04-02T03:17:21Z")
> [@Larry\_Mudd](#): > > If it makes you feel any better, that _never_ happens. A 1995 website optimized for an 800X600, 15" display would look terrible on the average contemporary display, never mind a site optimized for a phone. > > If we tried to design pages to look okay on mobile screens _and_ your desktop, you’d find a lot of websites that look like [this](http://m.fark.com/). We don’t do that, because that’s stupid. Well, of course that would be stupid, and it’s precisely what the rant is about, having one page layout seemingly meant to fit both desktops with (usually) horizontal screens and mobile platforms with vertical screens. IMHO, it doesn’t work, at all. It’s like flying cars, they are both crappy cars _and_ even crappier airplanes. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-which-ale-wishes-web-designers-to-pull-their-collective-heads-out-of-their-rectum/617500/17 "2012-04-02T06:21:11Z")
> [@elmwood](#): > > 1. Netbooks have fairly narrow screens. > > 2. Tablets have narrow screens. > > 3. Smartphones have extremely narrow screens. 2 and 3, not if you flip them, d’uh. 1 have small screens, but not narrow ones. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-which-ale-wishes-web-designers-to-pull-their-collective-heads-out-of-their-rectum/617500/18 "2012-04-02T08:18:17Z")
This has bugged me ever since I took a web design class. I even designed my final website to have an elastic layout and got docked for it. That said, I do have a sort of solution on my parent’s 1600x900 screen: I set the magnification up to 140%. Yeah, some pictures are a bit blurry, but no pages have more than an inch of margin. and most only have a half inch. Plus, they don’t have to sit so close to the screen and can relax a bit into the recliner beside it. ---
**Author:** ![kushiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kushiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kushiel)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-which-ale-wishes-web-designers-to-pull-their-collective-heads-out-of-their-rectum/617500/19 "2012-04-02T19:33:01Z")
As a front end dev? Come back to me when: a) designers figure out how to design elastic layouts that work well scaled for different resolutions, b) clients start ponying up the money for what is in effect multiple layouts. My hands are tied! I have no say in the design and even if I did adapt the final design to be mobile-friendly without permission, that extra time wasn’t included in the budget so I’m gonna get a slap on the wrist. I just wanted to poke my head in and say that it isn’t just the fault of the front end developer, there’s a lot of people involved in the process, and we do know how to make adaptive layouts. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-which-ale-wishes-web-designers-to-pull-their-collective-heads-out-of-their-rectum/617500/20 "2012-04-02T19:49:35Z")
> [@elmwood](#): > > 1. Netbooks have fairly narrow screens. > > 2. Tablets have narrow screens. > > 3. Smartphones have extremely narrow screens. > > 4. Many users of regular PCs still prefer windowing rather than using full-screen mode for everything. > > 5. It’s easier to read text when lines aren’t very long. > > This pitting is weak. Why can’t they just fit everything to screen? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-which-ale-wishes-web-designers-to-pull-their-collective-heads-out-of-their-rectum/617500.md?page=2)