Another installment in the preparing for a site series:
should the page design have a fixed or fluid width? I have a rather smaller screen because I'm too cheap to upgrade my computer until I have to but I understand the greater populous has larger screens and faster computers. Do you find a centered, fixed width page is better than a fluid, changing width page to keep the design balanced?

I personally prefer a fluid screen. I have a small laptop I take with me to places which has a smaller screen, but when I'm at home, I use one which has a much larger screen. It's unappealing to look at a site on my large screen that only uses a fifth of the page width and it's equally as frustrating to have a left-to-right scrolling bar on my smaller screen when a page is fixed to a size too large for me.

I have to agree wholeheartedly with Arch. I don't like fixed width ones at all for the same reasons. I honestly don't see the appeal of fixed width but perhaps it's more something you need to see from a designer's perspective. All I know is that it bugs me too.

That said, I seem to remember reading something in the past about a fixed width having some kind of benefit when it came to accessibility over a fluid one. Maybe someone can clarify if that's right or not?

Left to right scroll bars, didnt we leave those back in the 90's?

I have to agree as well, I have a 15" laptop and a 20 some " wide screen at my office, its a pain to have the same page load so funky.

Well it depends on the design. There is no general overall answer to this really.

Some fluid width sites just look plain silly on wider screens, while a fixed width centered layout may look nicer in that aspect.

One nice trick is to make the portions fluid that can be, and provide a fixed width for the others.

I like sites that are about 960 px wide regardless of what they are and centered in the browser.
That was what I liked so we use that for most of our websites.

My monitor is only 17" but it doesn't really matter for me if its a "fixed and centered" or a "fluid" page. I wouldn't mind scrolling as long as the main idea or thing about the website is clearly laid out.

btw my screen is 20", you should make a fixed page...