Website Layouts

I've spent a lot of time lately working on a class project for one of my computer science classes. Basically, the project is a website for the department of Residence Life here at The University of Southern Mississippi. The purpose of the site is to provide an online system for Residence Life staff members.

One aspect of the site that I have spent a lot of time working on is the layout. One issue I have with many sites on the Internet is that they are designed with a fixed width (take this blog for example). That is, the content on the page is always a certain width no matter how wide the web browser window may be. This is fine and dandy with traditional media, such as newspapers, magazines, books, and the like. However, electronic media does not have physical size restrictions as traditional media. Despite this, many web designers still restrict their websites to a predetermined size. Why? I believe it's because many people are stuck thinking about being confined by the physical restrictions of the material world.

I prefer sites that have a layout that flows. If a user chooses to make his/her window 500, 1000, or even 10000 pixels wide the site should fill the entire window accordingly. For example, take a look at the following screen shots of my design:





Notice how the page fills the entire window no matter how wide it is? Now take a look at a fixed-width website:





I find the large, empty white space very ugly and distracting.