There are a number of challenges web designers face when building a website.
Something to keep in mind is that a webpage is NOT PRINT AD. What that means is that (unlike a print brochure) a webpage is typically more "flexible" in it's appearance. A webpage can (and often will) have a different appearance on different computers. In fact, we've seen a lot of websites that look fine on some systems but are totally unreadable on a different computer system (such as a Mac running a Netscape browser). CYMAX MEDIA tests our websites on a number of browsers and computers and understands the wide range of potential challenges website designers face.

The trouble begins with varying hardware... not everyone has the same size monitor, computer platform (Mac/PC) running at the same resolution. To make things worse different browsers have different viewable screen areas. (Not to mention the size of font's may change from browser to browser and Mac to PC!).

The size of the user's web browser window is probably one of the first design decisions to agree upon when it comes to web page design. It is much easier viewing a web page that is designed for a smaller screen than one that is designed for a larger screen where you may have to do a lot of scrolling (left and right) to view the page. Thankfully, the minimum resolution most people use these days is 800 x 600 pixels and either use Internet Explorer or Netscape web browsers. (See stats below).

This page is to provide some general information to help get you started...including decisions webmasters face like: how "wide" should your website be?