Afraid of fluids

Fluid layouts offer great advances. The most interesting aspect of fluids as far as it concerns me is the adaptability of the system to user’s screen. However I admit I am afraid of fluids.

First of all there is no doubt that designers cannot rely on browsers yet. It ‘s no secret that browser acts differently in many cases. How does IE treat to ems or percentages versus Firefox? Or Opera? I sincerely have not clarify this.

Fluid layouts are a pain in the ass not because I hate experimenting with design, but because I have to put an extra amount of work before the actual design. All this comes for the reason that I need to take into account aspects never met in fixed design.

Let’s say that I have determined that all the users with a screen resolution less than 1024X768px have been already left out of the story. When the pioneers at A List Apart does it why shouldn’t I? What happens when you turn to fluids? You come back and you reconsider these users. How can you then excuse yourself for letting them out of the story?

There is something else too. Have you considered how more you need to work in order to prevent image stretching in a fluid layout? Who can afford a Jakob Nielsen’s design layout? OK, images can be controlled with some effort. What is going to happen to my perfectly balanced columns when I decide to work in a fluid design? Nightmare!

I never liked a screen full of info anyway. There is no space to breathe.

Instead of a fluid layout I do like tricks like the one applied in UX Magazine. The first row covers the whole screen. This black ribbon (which is not empty - instead it includes valuable inforamtion) embraces the page so nicely! There is space for the logo as well. The same technique could be applied to the footer too.

However I haven’t played enough with elastic designs. Added to the todos.