Website Resolution for Awards?

[Aignam]

What resolution is the best to use for the judging process? What resolution, rather, are the judges most likely to use? Should we all be safe and design for 800 by 600?

[Tom Bottiglieri]

i dont understand the judging requirments.. isnt FIRST all about being on the cutting edge of technology and using things to best of their abilities, not being confined to design for those who use 56k.. i think ppl should design sites to run on 1280x1024 at the least, but thats just my opinion

[Aignam]

Originally Posted by ToMMan b182

i dont understand the judging requirments.. isnt FIRST all about being on the cutting edge of technology and using things to best of their abilities, not being confined to design for those who use 56k.. i think ppl should design sites to run on 1280x1024 at the least, but thats just my opinion

FIRST helps us prepare for the future. A website being practical is more important than a website being flashy. Be pragmatic.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

so pretty much what u are saying is we have all this great new technology, but we arent going to take advantage of it?!.. thats pretty much saying ud rather drive a model T than an rx8

[Tom Bottiglieri]

^u can be practical in a higher resolution with nicer grphics and stuff like that.. but u will also be able to further the design of ur site asthetically(wrong spelling). when u design for a lower res when ppl look at it in a high res, everything seems so small and hard to comprehend, so pretty much what im saying is try to find a happy medium where everyone can be happy.(say, 1024by768)

[deltacoder1020]

also, some people will have their browser text size turned up, et cetera - not everyone likes looking at 12pt text on a 1600x1200 display.

Do what I do, and use CSS - that way, the page reflows itself for any resolution.

[Aignam]

Originally Posted by deltacoder1020

Do what I do, and use CSS - that way, the page reflows itself for any resolution.

Care to explain? I was thinking of making different resolution choices for the website from a splash menu...

[jonathan lall]

Great, this is what I was afraid of; now we're concentrating less on what we were doing for our sites, and more on playing to the judges. Inevitable I guess.

Ideally, websites should work in any resolution. To say that yours doesn't work with browser X or a certain resolution would be IMO copping out. Technology has nothing to do with it; if anything, it's actually the opposite. As deltacoder1020 mentioned, CSS can solve these problems, whether by making the page fluid (page reflow recalculated as the window changes size), or fixed at a low size. I intend to make print and low-capability stylesheet for other media for my websites when I get the time. But practically, I doubt catering to 640 x 480 is necessary. Oh, and I would rather drive a Model T than an RX 8.

[iamnafets]

He just says that because he designed his site for 800x600 rather than 600x800 (I somehow managed to forget the 200px nav bar) Oh well...make a flash only site, have everyone yell at you, then laugh because if you don't embed it in an object, it will automatically adjust and antialias from there.

...or, spend extra time making your site accessable to blind people, people who are colorblind, people without a right arm, or without working fingers, people who can't hear, don't have monitors, can't watch flashes without getting seizures, lack a web browser, people who like the first logo (even if it doesn't fit), people who care how much of your site is "non-text", and finally, judges of the FIRST website award.

"I should turn this into a poem." ~ Stefan Mai

[Aignam]

I asked the question assuming that the FIRST judges, those whom will be judging the Website Award this year, are significantly experience with websites and know what is entailed in an effective website. Webdesigners design for their visitors. Obviously, the FIRST Judges' approval is a good sign that you are on the path to becoming a successful webmaster. Why not design to please them? They are my audience, for all intensive purposes, as well as anyone out there who may stumble across my team's website. If they approve, then it is fair to say that most others will.

[jonathan lall]

Now now, let's not take this out of context; I'm simply noting the huge shift in priorities for all the teams' websites. Nobody's saying it's dumb to cater to the judges. That would be dumb to say.

Stefan, I can absolutely guarantee you will have all kinds of trouble with a site like what you describe; I doubt the judges would like those either. Especially if they don't have IE6 SP1 on WinXP with 1024 x 768 resolution, Flash 6, Microsoft Java, Javascript, a highspeed connection, sound on, and popups enabled. I'm jus' sayin'. Why not make your site a big picture? Or better yet a big Flash animation; save the search engines the trouble of indexing your pages. I think you're missing a few key points to the idea of HTML. The way I see it, If you want Photoshop, get a Deviantart page. Otherwise, make a website! There's no doubt what you propose looks nice when it works, but that isn't enough.