Liquid vs. Fixed

As it turns out, Jeremy Keith seems to be one of the most vigorous supporters of liquid layouts I've ever met. So, not surprisingly, he has once again broached the subject over on hist blog.

Jeremy suggests that it is "monkey see, monkey do" at the root of the problem. However, it most likely goes much deeper than this.

We are just now starting to have designers who have designed for the web their whole life and are not influenced by any sort of print or traditional background. Additionally, due to advancements in blogging tools and other frameworks it has become easier and easier for anyone to build a dynamic web site without any kind of true programming knowledge.

This has lowered the barrier to entry for many designers, and they can make the jump from print and other traditional medias with increasingly less effort.

Ok. So what's the point?

Designing for traditional media allows for very exacting control over a design, typography, colors, size, and more. Until the web came along, a designer never had to worry about variables such as screen resolution, limited color palettes, or the availability of their favorite font on every machine.

Is it any surprise that those designers do not want to relinquish that control? Of course not, that is how they are used to working, and the web doesn't want to cooperate (Yet).

Embracing the Web

You will never hear someone complain about how easy it is to publish new content on the web, but they will complain about the afore-mentioned lack of control. So why doesn't anybody ever complain that their latest poster doesn't automatically publish and mail itself to their audience? Ok, that's rhetorical. The point is that the web is different, and while we shouldn't settle for the limitations of the medium long term, we should embrace those constraints in the short term.

We should also take advantage of the strengths. Naturally, one of those strengths is the ability to use liquid layouts. Don't worry that your design may "fail" if somebody's screen is too big, that's the nature of the beast. What should concern you more is that fixed-width designs may be "failing" at larger screen resolutions.

Increased Resolutions

While it isn't super-prevalent yet, a quick glance at TheCounter.com and we can see that the 800x600 market share is continuing to shrink. And for anybody who's read about Longhorn, Microsoft is betting that by the time it is released, most everybody will be running 1024x768.

Ok, that's not saying much, but that's not a huge gap from 800x600. And I'm guessing that most designers are running somewhere in the neighborhood of 1280. Do you think that a stripe of a website down the center of a screen is creative? (Hint: It's not.) Ok, no more rhetorical questions, I promise.

Style Sheet Switching

It's not easy to create a liquid layout that works, and that's most likely the number one reason that more people haven't done it. Doug and Dan have nailed it in my opinion. They offer both fixed and liquid through the wonders of style sheet switching. It's not easy to mold the same content to fit both styles, but if they can do it, so can you.

Designers Desire Pixel-Precise Control

This is probably the most disappointing cause of fixed-width layouts. When it comes down to it, designers want, and are accustomed, to control every pixel and font to make their design perfect. This is frustrating enough with CSS and XHTML, but when you tell a traditional designer that different browsers will interpret their code differently, that different screen resolutions might leave too much white space, or, God forbid, not everybody has that font installed on their machine, they aren't going to like it.

They come from a world of control and precision, and these variables just aren't acceptable to them. Someday web development may provide that kind of control. In the meantime though, it doesn't, and if you can't let that go at least a little bit, you shouldn't be designing for the web.

Then why used fixed?

Fixed layouts aren't all bad. They're easier to create. They provide more precise control. They can also help you use optimal line length, a point that should not be taken lightly. Hell, all of my sites are fixed-width.

As with anything, there is no definitive answer, and everybody needs to decide for themselves and their situation. But next time you are deciding, give liquid a chance. Doug and Dan did, and I'm willing to bet you respect their work.

Also, since somebody is bound to point it out, this site isn't liquid. I'm the pot, and yeah, I'm calling the kettle black. I took the easy way out, and I admit it. I did, however, spend a lot of time exploring and trying liquid layouts for this site. Sadly, it didn't work for me. I'm probably just not good enough, but I know the rest of you are.