subject: Liquid Website Layout [print this page] Launching a business website involves a lot of thought and decision making. One of the earliest decisions that you need to take when launching a site is about the layout of the site. You need to decide whether you want a fixed width layout for the site or a liquid layout. Though the fixed layout is the popular choice among designers, both these layouts have their pros and cons. This article talks about the pros and cons of a liquid layout.
Liquid Layout Pros
User friendly
Scrolling down the web page of a site continuously to read its content can be irritating. In some cases, some of the parts of a web page are left blank due to the high resolution of the screen on which it is being viewed. As a result, most of the content of the page is on the lower half. Liquid layouts can help designers solve this problem. They can make the content flexible. The content of a site that is made in liquid layout can fit a page according to the size of the users screen. It can also be changed according to the resolution of the screen.
Visually appealing
Inconsistent spaces in the pages take away the aesthetic appeal of a site. If the site is made using liquid layout, then all the empty spaces on the pages will look consistent on all the browsers making the pages look appealing.
Liquid layouts help to eliminate horizontal scrollbars
One of the problems with the fixed width layout is the use of horizontal scrollbars. One may come across these scrollbars if the resolution of the screen is lower than the resolution in which the site has been designed. With liquid layout the content will rearrange itself according to the resolution of the screen. As a result, the problem of the horizontal scrollbar appearing on the screen will be solved.
Cons of Liquid Layout
Lesser control on how the site looks
Though liquid layouts can make fitting of content on a page flexible, one should be careful about seeing how the content will appear on a screen with extremely high or low resolutions. Sometimes, the sides of the page may not appear correctly and this can lead to a very bad user experience.
There can be a problem with flash, video, etc
Though liquid layouts can help to resize the content of a web page, it may not be possible to resize all the elements of a site. Sizes of some of the elements of a site like videos, flash media and images cannot be changed. For instance, the masthead of a site will have to be designed in a specific size only if it is made in Flash.
May not look appealing on a screen with very high resolution
A site that is created using liquid layout can make the blank spaces of a page appear even bigger on a very high resolution screens. This can take away the aesthetic appeal of the site and also make it appear like the site has very little content.
Readability Issues
A site created using liquid layouts can make the width of a line of text look wider on a high resolution screen. As a result, the lines on the screen can look very long and this can make it difficult for the user to read the text. Similarly, if the resolution of the screen is very low, the width of the text on the screen can become very narrow. This can also cause readability issues for the users.
Can cause problems while printing
Printing default pages can be difficult if they have been created using liquid layouts. The only way to solve this problem would be to add separate print style sheets to print the pages. This will add an extra step to manage in the entire procedure.
Hybrid Layouts
Since both the fixed and liquid layouts have their own sets of advantages and disadvantages, most professional web design companies use a combination of both these layouts to design websites. Most of the elements of a site will have to be created using a fixed layout. However, the liquid layout can be used for some of the elements as well. If a combination of both the layouts is used, the site will appear correctly irrespective of the users screen resolution. If a combination of the layouts is used, then designers can avoid the empty spaces in the middle of the page like the ones found in a liquid layout. They can also eliminate the blanks in the side of a page like the ones found in a fixed layout.
In spite of its advantages and disadvantages, both fixed and liquid layouts can help to create a great user experience if they are used correctly. Hybrid layouts have become a favorite among web design service providers as they allow the designers to make use of the best of both the design layouts.
