Nick Avallone
03-07-2008, 02:43 PM
I have a client who wants to revamp her website using a centered layout. (She claims that 95% of all websites are now centered, which seems to be a gross exaggeration.)
My instinct is to keep it left-justified, because the distance between browser elements and webpage elements is always constant, thus potentially providing more efficient usage. Whereas with a centered layout, that distance shrinks and grows depending on how the browser is resized. Nor do I think that a fixed-width centered layout looks any better than fixed-width left-justified: while the latter leaves a lot of whitespace in the right margin, the former tends to make the site look tiny and lost in a sea of white space.
Not that I'm going to argue with my client (they are always right...) but I'd love to hear any opinions/research regarding the pros and cons of both layouts.
My instinct is to keep it left-justified, because the distance between browser elements and webpage elements is always constant, thus potentially providing more efficient usage. Whereas with a centered layout, that distance shrinks and grows depending on how the browser is resized. Nor do I think that a fixed-width centered layout looks any better than fixed-width left-justified: while the latter leaves a lot of whitespace in the right margin, the former tends to make the site look tiny and lost in a sea of white space.
Not that I'm going to argue with my client (they are always right...) but I'd love to hear any opinions/research regarding the pros and cons of both layouts.