I wanted to get some feedback from you guys on the whole “fixed vs variable width” debate for website design.  JK.com is (and always has been) a variable width site, and will more than likely continue to be for the foreseeable future, but I’ve seen some pretty good arguments as of late pushing fixed width design as it lends itself to better readability, and works better across different screen resolutions.  I personally prefer variable width mainly due to the fact that since I paid for a monitor capable of 1600x1200, I’d like as much of that real estate to be put to use as possible…but I also just like the whole look and feel of an entire browser window containing content. 

I do realize that at higher resolutions (like what I use) readability starts becoming a bit of an issue as blocks of text are stretched out (and usability tests have proven that readers prefer shorter lines of text), but the same is true for fixed width sites at higher resolutions…you’re left with a narrow column of content in the middle, with each side basically being left unused.  Not distracting per se, but kind of annoying nonetheless.  At lower resolutions, fixed width sites generally have an edge over variable width from what I’ve seen.  There are always some tradeoffs.

In a perfect world, web designers would create sites exactly how they want them to look (which in my case is quite true)…but in the real world you have to design for what your users want.  Not that I really care what (all 4 of) you people think, but wanted some feedback regardless ;-).

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