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A page change from the forum overview to a single forum (like to "game programming") now first jumps back to full witdh of the displayed overview page, reformats the overview, jump to the new page, reformats in full width, jumps to having empty space ath both sides, and reformats again.
Since each reformat takes 0.1 - 0.2 seconds it becomes highly annoying to browse after some time.
I'm not sure that's actually true for the members of this forum - do you collect resolution data from users' browsers?As I've said before, high resolutions (> 1920px) are the exception, not the norm.
If you look at the average out there, sure, bargain basement Chromebooks and the like are going to pull the average down. But my experience is that game developers tend to have above-average hardware.
For example, my 5 year-old MacBook has a 2880x1800 display, and the smallest display Apple currently manufactures is 2304x1440. Any decent PC laptop has the same resolution or higher (there are a bunch of PCs with optional 4k displays).
Edit: The new theme is definitely doubling my paragraph breaks. What shows as a single blank line in the editor is displayed as two once I hit submit.
Show me a site like GameDev.net with similar content, components, etc that is full width.
It's not the web's fault for going to fixed width centered containers for content. It's psychology. The research I've done into design and usability convinced me that fixed width containers are a better style for a site like gamedev.net where people are trying to consume and retain information. This was not an easy mindset change as I've always preferred 100% width. Research suggests that properly contained content is easier to read, easier to digest, and ultimately more efficient to process. The trick is ensuring proper whitespace balancing to structure the content. This is why the web has gone that way, although I think more mobile and varied displays contribute to that as well.
I've increased the container width for a certain size screen. Parts of the site look terrible and disrupt content flow at this width, but I suspect anyone who cares more about width won't care about content flow.
Show me a site like GameDev.net with similar content, components, etc that is full width.
How about three? Full width isn't necessary, but filling the window is. Use the space the user provides.
Those are forums only. We have more than just forums, which I think is part of the issue here.. those who don't like this layout want full-width forums but forget about the rest of the site. Front page looks worse the wider it gets, and we're building out new sections there. Blogs and articles look worse if we go wider than they are now (in all instances, too much horizontal text, not enough text blocks which are easier to read).
It won't get wider than the current layout. I've already made some concessions for wider screens at the detriment of other areas of the site. And as I've said before, <=1920 resolution is the majority of visitors to the site at this time. I applaud higher resolutions, but according to our stats >= 1920 is nowhere near the majority here.
Those are forums only. We have more than just forums, which I think is part of the issue here..
Those are forums only. We have more than just forums, which I think is part of the issue here..
ocforums.com main page: http://www.overclockers.com/
ReefCentral main page: http://www.reefcentral.com/index.php?s=
EEVBlog main page: http://www.eevblog.com/
Plenty of other content in different formats. I'm only talking about the forums, not the other content.
What is the issue with this? Why is this not desirable? More space for the forum content:
As I've said, the basic reason it's not desirable is readability. Majority of the web has gone fixed width for a reason, despite screens becoming higher density and wider. Long horizontal lines of text have been proven to reduce information retention, scanning efficiency, and other factors that basically reduce your ability to find and absorb relevant information.
In addition, wider width complicates the design. It's not like we have a staff of web designers waiting for their next project to accommodate how to best address content and style goals into > 1920px.
But my final point has to do with the last screenshot you posted. Your eyes will be slower reading the 100% width screen of the forums vs a fixed width condensed version. In the 100% width, your eyes will catch the left column of topics, and for each row your brain will traverse across empty whitespace to see when the latest post happened and who posted it. Your eyes will not jump to the right column, even though you might think so. They have to go horizontal across the empty whitespace because they need to trace the horizontal lines to make sure you're in the proper row and reading the relevant information.
Fixed width / more condensed eliminates most of the center whitespace traversal - sure, a lot of unused pixels around the content, but a) at least there isn't a lot of unused pixels within the content, and b) unused pixels around the content frame it so your eyes/brain know where to focus. We don't want you looking in the gutters anyway unless we put something there (a very real possibility at some point in the future for important notices). It really is that simple.
Folks, this layout was not just thrown together. A fair amount of research and experimentation went into it with the goal to make the website a better tool for you. Are we more interested in pixel efficiency or brain efficiency? The response to this layout seems to imply pixels are more important than brains.
Long horizontal lines of text have been proven to reduce information retention, scanning efficiency, and other factors that basically reduce your ability to find and absorb relevant information.
I think the reason why the width feels wrong on the Gamedev page and not on the other sites is because there is no clear indication of what is background and what is content.
In this example provided by jbadams we can see that the other pages have clear separation between the content and background.
While the Gamedev forum looks like a white page, with writing only in the center, maybe all you need to do is darken the background or add a clear repeating detail, so that it becomes meaningless noise and fades to the back of a readers mind.
this image posted by MarkS, shows the noise idea.
