Horizontal scroll bars in an 800 x 600 screen resolution have long been a DSQ item or at a minimum a point’s deduction for AP’s over the years. The historical reason for this was based on the default setting in Windows of an 800 x 600 screen resolution, which was predicated by the use of 15” monitors. The greatest percentage of the population never changes the default settings of their computers so the “standard” gets set by either the Windows default settings or the factory settings of the computer manufacturer. Within the last couple of years however, most new monitors purchased are a minimum of 17” or greater and the default resolution with most new computers has increased to a minimum of 1024 x 768 and even greater if you purchase a laptop computer. The native resolution in a laptop or an LCD screen is an absolute minimum of 1024 x 768 and this is hardware driven. (1) Subsequently the usage of the older screen resolution has been steadily decreasing every year at an average rate of around 10%, depending on the statistics you are using.

Current statistics show that the 800 x 600 screen resolutions are now used by less than 25% of all users which is down from 30% just 6 months ago and 35% 1 year ago. The 1024 x 768 screen resolution and greater make up for the vast majority of all users. (2)

For this reason many professional designers are making more effective use of the greater “real-estate” area available on the larger screen resolutions and have been backing away from the “old” standard of 800 x 600. The few but rapidly diminishing users with the smaller resolution will have horizontal scroll bars until they upgrade to a newer system or change the default settings on their existing computers.

It is agreed that web pages can be relatively simply made to adjust to make use of the 1024 x 768 screen size and will automatically reduce down to 800 x 600 if the need arises. There are however drawbacks with this solution, primarily with the restriction it places on how you can design and layout your pages. The header image cannot be greater than a maximum width of 771 pixels and many times you need/want a greater width…. especially if it is available. Also the top navigation is restricted to the smaller size, which can be a major obstacle. As well the size of the images you might need to use in your page presentation is restricted by the lower screen resolution. If you want to use content managed boxes on the page then again the smaller resolution can cause issues with the overall design.

A website that effectively uses the automatically adjusting web page is www.maddocks.ca but even that has “ugly” spaces either side of the flash header. A site where it was decided to go with the larger resolution as the base web page size is www.canadiansbaseball.com This site due to the many content managed areas, images and navigation, needed the larger screen size and after consideration of the market and other variables the decision was made to ignore the smaller resolution.

In view of the rapidly diminishing 800 x 600 screen resolutions is it still responsible to DSQ or even deduct points for a designer creating a site with scroll bars at 800 x 600? This is a question that the individual AP’s will need to answer based on their research and willingness to change with the times… at least in my humble opinion.

(1) Conventional 4:3 resolutions typically include: -

XGA (1024x768)
SXGA+ (1400x1050)
UXGA (1600x1200)

Some of the latest notebooks feature a 16:10 ratio wide-aspect display. The associated resolutions include: -

WXGA (1280x800)
WXGA+ (1440x900)
WSXGA+ (1680x1050)
WUXGA (1920x1200)

XGA = Extended Graphics Array
SXGA = Super XGA
UXGA = Ultra XGA
"W" Prefix = Wide

Native Resolutions and Image Scaling
Flat panel monitors, commonly referred to as fixed matrix displays, operate best at their native resolution. An XGA LCD panel for instance, has 1,024 pixels in each horizontal line and 768 pixels in each vertical line. CRTs on the other hand, have a very large number of scalable pixels that allow it to display many different resolutions.

If a user purchases an extremely high resolution panel and decides to lower the resolution, the image quality is negatively impacted. For example, in order for an XGA panel to operate at 800x600 resolution, the image must be scaled up by 1.28x horizontally and vertically to fit the panel. Since 1.28 is not a whole-number increment, interpolated algorithms or "scaling" must be performed on the image. The image is stretched and distortion occurs. This scaling method results in somewhat blurry and fuzzy text.

Native Resolution also applies to LCD monitors, even 15'' monitors:

The Samsung SyncMaster™ 540N is a 15-inch analog TFT-LCD delivering a 450:1 contrast ratio, 250 cd/m2 brightness, 1024 x 768 Max / Native resolution.

(2) http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

Meaning - The condition of being temporarily set aside or suspension: held the plan in abeyance.

Many times over the years with my awards program VSDA and more recently the OTR PDA I found that an applicant had a very good site, but there were a few minor features that needed to be amended. In particular this applied to aspects that could DSQ a site or cause them not to reach a certain level.

An example could be broken links on an applicant site. If this is part of the criteria of your AP, and it is with most, then it is a regular item that needs to be dealt with. The easiest method is to simply DSQ the site and you are done with it… but is it the easiest method after all? True it gets the file off your application queue, but if you provide feedback to the client and let them know the reason for the DSQ, you are almost certainly going receive back some negative feedback from the applicant. Then you have to reply to the feedback, and in all probability you will receive a response again… and it eats up time and all the while producing a negative impression of your AP and most likely not putting you as the AP owner in a good frame of mind either.

Wouldn’t it be more effective to simply place the application into abeyance for a set period of time, advise the applicant of the issue and await their almost certain positive feedback expressing their gratitude for this very different attitude? In the worst case they will write back to explain their case, and who knows you might find a need to further clarify your criteria.

In the situation of APIRS as an index, the most common issue we face is our criterion on the requirement of feedback and notification. Again the simplest method would be to DSQ the applicant site and move on… but is that going to help us get the message across of helping people to build better websites? No, all it is going to do is make a case for a further disgruntled group of AP managers.

Contacting the AP owner, placing the application in abeyance and explaining further the concept of feedback produces a positive effect and that effect just by its nature passes on down to the individual web designers. The impact of a small change in attitude can have far reaching and extremely positive impact to your AP.

Web Design and Sound

Creating a web page that attracts the viewers and keeps them there is an art and a science combined into one. An effective website is a combination of appealing graphics, logical navigation and effective copy. If any one of these components is missing then your webpage will fail to fulfill the promise that you had wished for. Now you might ask, what about SEO or search engine optimisation and that of course is an integral part of what needs to be done… but SEO for a good part depends on layout and effective written content and not so much on “tricks” of the SEO trade.

I will write a further article on some of the above aspects of web design in a later article but today I want to talk about sound on your website. Sound can enhance your site and make it more interactive… or it can annoy and drive your visitors away. It is very easy to create a site that we think is “funky” and cool but doesn’t take into consideration the annoyance a regular viewer might feel.

Our design studio created a site for a major corporate client that had a “funky” navigation in flash that made a sound every time you scrolled over the nav. Client thought it was very cool and so did we until the complaints started rolling in. The users found it extremely annoying, in particular if they forgot to turn their sound down on their speakers. When we redid the site that was one of the first things to go.

A common practise is to have sound occurring automatically in your flash intro. We are all accustomed to a “Skip Intro” link but generally that only gets hit after our ears were blasted because we forgot to turn down the sound and we just woke up the baby or had a heart attack. Often as designers we forget that not everyone wants to hear our choice of music, or the sound of a camera as we go through images, or the sound of a truck engine starting, or a boat leaving the dock. The possibilities are endless and all of them have the chance of creating the one thing we do not want… and that is an annoyed viewer. Why take the risk? Doesn’t it make more sense to have a “Turn on Sound to Enjoy” button rather than leaving me with no choice as the viewer?

I was on a site the other day that had just such an option and I had a very enjoyable time listening to Vivaldi as I made my way through the site… and I stayed for a long time (we call that stickiness) my viewing enhanced by “my choice” of the music available.

In my opinion a conscientious designer leaves all of the options open to the viewer and does not force their particular choices on them… no matter how funky, cool or even relevant to the site that we think they are.