There are a few seemingly perpetual debates in web design. 800×600 vs 1024×768. Fixed vs fluid. Content on the right or left. The choice of using a 2 column layout or a 3 column one is another of these.
Advantages of a Two Column Layout
- Forces minimalism. There tends to be less sidebar room in a 2 column layout. You simply don’t have the space for 100 different widgets without overstretching the page. This limit forces you to be a little more careful about choosing which widgets are installed.
- Sidebar padding. In a 3 column layout, each of the two sidebar columns is rarely as wide as the one sidebar column in a 2 column layout. Some of the broader widgets tend to be feel cluttered in such an environment. 2 column layouts have a little more defense in this regard.
- Large content area. Not all designs call for it but, a large area for the content can yield its advantages. Larger images perhaps? Or a large font-size, like on Weblog Tools Collection?
- Thinner layout, making it fit in better on a small resolution. In an 800×600 pixel screen, there is a limited amount of real estate on screen. The content is more important, and so, if the small 2 column design is what is needed to prevent the content from being cramped then 2 columns it is.
Advantages of a Three Column Layout
- Sidebars take up more space. Whilst taking up less space can be an advantage, so too can taking up more space. When you have a lot of room to fill, and don’t want to stretch your content horizontally to do so, the extra sidebar width can be your saving grace.
- Less cluttered feeling. Taking a set number of widgets and placing them vertically in a 2 column layout is one thing. If you then take those same widgets and spread them over the 2 sidebars in a 3 column layout, you will notice things tend to feel much less cluttered, when done well.
- Centered content. With a 3 column design, it is possible to place one column on either side of the content, effectually centering the content column. This makes the creation of a symmetrically balanced design that little bit easier.
- Posts are rarely shorter than the sidebar. As a blogger, you never know how long every post will be. A design may look great when you’ve filled the test post with 800 words of dummy text, but what about the short posts you might write in reality? Few things look worse than a sidebar overextending the content area.
In conclusion, there is no reason to say that the 3 column layout is better than the 2 column layout. However, there are many good reasons why I personally am using a 3 column layout.
This blog is built for bloggers and designers who, if I may make a generalization, tend to have larger screens. Therefore it is 1024 pixels wide, not 800, meaning that I have more space to fill up. I’m also using a relatively small font size, meaning that I also need a relatively small content area, otherwise my lines will be too long. 3 column design suits the bill in my case.
Those reasons are why a 3 column layout works best for my blog. What works best for your blog?
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Nuts & Milk (12 comments)20 September 07
Well I personally favour a mix of both. I mean use a single but wide sidebar, and split it into two wherever needed.
Eli (2 comments)20 September 07
I would have thought that having one sidebar would have a less cluttered feeling rather than having two
Nice post anyway, you make a lot of valid points. I’ve never really ventured into using two sidebars, and I don’t think I will either, just doesn’t seem right for me.
Designing your website for 800×600 resolution compatibility is another good subject to discuss about though. I myself have only recently started designing websites for 1024×768 minimum, as my 800×600 visitors are decreasing (thankfully)
Plus, if you have your content on the left, a user on an 800×600 resolution user should still be able to view your content, which is the main thing.
Slevi (73 comments)20 September 07
Sorry to say but everybody who still goes on with the 800×600 debate is living in the wrong decade
. The resolution size of 800×600 and lower doesn’t even surpass 9%, I think it’s on around 8.7% at the moment and still decreasing.
You’re not designing for the past, you’re designing towards the future. I’d even go as far as saying that 1024 width is becoming less and less of a debate, although it still has a market share of around 48% it’s losing ground rapidly for the higher resolutions.
Within the past 3 years the higher resolutions have doubled from about 20% towards over 40%.
On a design focussed blog like this the averages are even more in favor of the higher resolutions, some don’t even surpass 10% in resolutions of 1024 or lower in width.
The amount of sidebars is something I don’t really care about, as long as it’s worked out well. If you do take multiple sidebars at least fix them as well so if they outstretch your content or your content outstretches the sidebar it still keeps the desired look.
Due to the big fear or turnoff for JavaScript many people have though a lot of blogs don’t keep that in mind even if the design asks for it.
kristarella (141 comments)20 September 07
You know, it never really occurred to me that you use a “3 column layout”. Obviously I have eyes and can see that there’s sort of 2 sidebars, but they’re both on the right, so it’s not traditional. That’s a good thing. I’m generally opposed to 3 columns with content in the middle. I find it difficult to know where to look, it’s not left to right, but it’s not right to left, it’s middle and then who knows where. Usually to find blog navigation I’ll look up the top or in a sidebar, but if there’s two sidebars and they’re not next to each other it can take a while to find what you’re looking for. Sure, it might only be a second or less, but when you’re navigating through lots of pages you notice the difference.
“Due to the big fear or turnoff for JavaScript many people have though a lot of blogs don’t keep that in mind even if the design asks for it.”
What does that mean?
Slevi (73 comments)20 September 07
What I meant with that is that some people use multicolored sidebars, making the content usually white and then the sidebars to different shades of colors which match with the rest of the layout.
But rather than fixing the height though so it continues till the bottom, the color simply ends at 2 random places having the white of the content or a background color take place instead.
In case of the background being transparent you’d have a result like here on problogdesign, something which doesn’t look out of place. But if the left column would be a shade of green like from the comment field and the one right of that would be like the border from the comment field here you get 2 green blocks there rather than fully length sidebars.
With JavaScript though you can quite easily fix that till the day multicolumn CSS is finally integrated in every browser.
And a visual sample of what I mean:
http://www.kingcosmonaut.de/v1.....ample1.htm
You can probably even attempt to fix a simple 3 col layout like that without javascript, but sometimes there’s a demand for more complicated forms and then javascript can definitely help you out well.
Meanwhile though, there’s still a lot of blogs out there with sidebars suddenly ending in nothing and breaking up the design.
Darjan (2 comments)20 September 07
I also think that 1024 resolution will be a standard soon. 800×600 is kinda outdated. But still, if you had 10.000 visitors daily and would have 10% of people using 800×600 who wouldn’t be able to see your whole site, would you still use 1024? If you don’t go down to 800, you’ll just saying them “Leave my site, i don’t care about you!”
But if everyone starts to use 1024, they will need to adapt like everyone else, so you’re pushing them a bit with it.
Slevi (73 comments)20 September 07
Don’t forget that a big part of the systems with 800×600 are the old win 95 using comps at primary education, science institutes, etcetera. Chances are low you’ll actually track anything close to 10% on your own blog/site’s stats, less than 5% is more like it.
And why not force them to switch? A lot of web developers are starting to ditch IE6 compatibility as well even though still around 25% of all users uses IE6
.
It’s sort of a majority thing, is it in the right of the 75% or higher to make them lack behind for those not wanting to update? It happens nowhere, just look in other cases of technology:
Vista, required a lot better of a computer than XP
Games, every year the requirements go up, they don’t wait for the minority
Movies, do you still see VHS being sold? Still a lot of people don’t have a DVD player
Music, LP’s might still be sold, but see any cassettes around? Rarely, all changed to CD a long time ago and now in the digital age even that might reduce a lot one day.
Why would it be different in the world of web development? Should you truly care about that 5% which lacks behind so far that you might risk pushing away the top 30%? There’s more to lose than there is to win if you keep on going for the lowest all the time.
Starfeeder (13 comments)20 September 07
I’ve struggled with trying to fit a lot of content/modules in the 2 column layout.. thanks for the tips
doug m (3 comments)20 September 07
i feel that a 3 column layout allows a little more customization of where you can place certain items that help visitors find what they need.
Mommy Zabs (45 comments)20 September 07
I love 3 column, in fact i just found out the copy blogger theme I altered for notchinamade.net has a 3 column version, so i’m kicking myslef that now i have added nother thing to my to do!
Michael Martin (1319 comments)20 September 07
Nuts & Milk – That’s an interesting idea that I’ve seen done well before. It needs a fair bit of planning at the start though!
Eli – When you stack all the widgets vertically in the one sidebar, it becomes very long, very quickly, and can feel cluttered that way.
(Compare that with how little vertical space my sidebar is taking up over 2 cols)
I wrote a guest post on the topic of resolutions not too long ago. I haven’t given up entirely on 800×600, but for the most part, I have. 1024×768 is an acceptable baseline in most cases, as you said.
Slevi – You shouldn’t be so gallant with your stats. It’s simply impossible for them to be totally reliable.
I get what you’re saying though. In some niches, 800×600 is dying, like on this blog it’s only 1%, but that’s not true for all niches. Don’t give up on it entirely yet!
1024×768 will be around for another long while though!
And there are pure-CSS methods of creating such 3 column layouts. JS shouldn’t be used for layouts unless it degrades very gracefully.
Kristarella – That’s a good point. Some sites (Like Amazon) do it well, but not all. On Pro Blog Design, the goal was as you said. You shouldn’t really notice the 2 sidebars. The content area should be very clear, and the sidebars just exist as part of the background.
Darjan – Well said. You can’t undermine the importance of even a rather small minority of your visitors. Your site must still be useable at the very least!
Slevi (Again.
) – I can see your point, but you can’t be so ruthless. For one, it’s not always up to the user to upgrade. Consider various school networks and small companies that don’t have the budget to buy 100 new monitors. (And your stats are pretty off again. Not that it can be proven either way, but last time I checked, IE6 was still the most popular browser. 
)
What you’re suggesting rings similar with the horrible “This site best viewed in xyz” days. It’s not up to you to choose how a person reads your site. It’s just up to you to make sure that as many as possible can read it.
Starfeeder – No problem. The 3rd column, on a wide resolution, opens up a remarkable amount of new space!
Doug – Very true. I know that I’ve spent a fair bit of time playing with the arrangement of my sidebar widgets here on Pro Blog Design. There is a lot more freedom involved.
Mommy Zabs – lol – I wouldn’t worry. It looks great anw way!
David Hopkins (8 comments)20 September 07
@Darjan: I remember just under over a year ago when I was working at a company I went out to ddo a job where the guy had a 23 inch monitor and it looked like he was using 600*480 (is that correct, i dont remember), but he was using 800*600. It just looked so big on his monitor.
Anyway, on the topic of column layouts. A new working draft has been produced by W3C from grid layouts. Check it out: http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-css3-grid-20070905/
Michael Martin (1319 comments)20 September 07
On a 23″ screen, he’s mad to stick to that resolution! My screen is 23″ and I’m on 1680×1050. The extra space with a good sized monitor is extremely useful.
Slevi (73 comments)20 September 07
Ok, my figure of IE6 was a bit of, it’s 35% in july on w3schools browser stats according to google cache
. Still within just a year and a half it has dropped with 25%, currently we’re 2 months further and in the same trend it’d be at around 32% probably then and still decreasing.
OneStat in april reported 8.1% on 800×600 resolution, 1024 was on 55%. The rest is higher resolutions than those, 640 is nearly died out completely. Just 8 months before that, 800×600 was still on 12% according to OneStat, so if that trend continued the resolution is now on 4% throughout the web.
As for the higher resolutions, in summer 2005 it came down to about 20%, summer 2003 it was nearly nothing. Currently it’s about 40%. So you can say that every 2 years it increases with around 15~20% so far.
With Vista introduced this might even go more rapid as new systems will be purchased a lot the upcoming years in order to upgrade again.
I wouldn’t really say it is equal to the best viewed in xyz, since with that both options were a main and yet growing standard. In case of internet explorer though and the resolution of 800×600 that’s not the case, they’re as good as dead soon. Of course you’ll want to optimize for as much as possible, but it just doesn’t always work.
In example IE6’s CSS handling is terrible, would you really want to work with a bunch of CSS hacks to fix most of your designs so it displays well in IE6?
Do you really want to optimize a design for a resolution which a year from now will probably be completely buried?
And when you want to talk ancient, most of the systems which still have resolution 800×600 come with internet explorer 5 or even 4 still. I doubt there’s seriously anybody who would still optimize for that.
So I wouldn’t really say it’s being ruthless
, although too many unfortunately do tend to keep clinging on to the old standards way too much if you ask me.
Try checking a page designed for 800×600 in a 1920 resolution on hdtv and you’ll see why it’s a problem to cling on to the past too much
.
goldfries (81 comments)20 September 07
Alternatively one could always check their stats and see how many users are on 800×600.
In my case, it’s so minimal I couldn’t be bothered.
kristarella (141 comments)21 September 07
Slevi, good call on the sidebar length. I thought you’d gone onto a new topic (because of new paragraph) and made a random comment about javascript. I see what you’re saying now! I’m fairly sure that you can do that without javascript too. I’ve done it with CSS and with background images before.
You were making it sound like people using 800×600 don’t matter at all and saying that they should be “forced” to switch is pretty ruthless – people don’t necessarily have money to replace something that works. However, looking at my stats, there are more people on 1440 and 1680 than on 800×600, you can’t accommodate everyone perfectly. I’d also be surprised if people with high resolution screens were using their browser at full size though. I don’t think it hurts to make your page as accessible as possible.
Michael Martine with an E (3 comments)21 September 07
You can use graphics as “fake” columns. Just repeat-y in the CSS. I’m a big fan of 3-col 2 right sidebar layouts. Love ‘em.
Dave S. (15 comments)21 September 07
The screen resolution debate seems to have sparked more controversy than the 2/3 column debate.
I prefer 2 column sites as they tend to be narrower. I usually have an rss sidebar in my browser which takes up some room. I like Michael’s 2 sidebars on the right design as the 2nd sidebar is usually clipped and I generally don’t scroll horizontally. The point being I still see the content. btw, I have a 15 inch monitor @ 1024×768.
As far as screen resolution goes, keep in mind not everyone maximizes their browser window. If anyone is interested, Roger Johansson asked his readers “Do you maximize your web browser”? A link to the results is at the bottom of his post.
Darjan (2 comments)21 September 07
Well, 800×600 is used because people like it better since everything is bigger for them, or the equipment is old.
Companies therefore won’t be optimizing anymore for these people since people with low budget aren’t interesting for them. On the other side, pc equipment companies could give them the 800×600, since they’ll be buying their stuff. Or, if they don’t, they can use the marketing method to “force” them into buying.
There’s lots of different way to think this over. In a few years, 1024 will be like 800 today, we’ll just be using bigger fonts etc.
Nuts & Milk (12 comments)21 September 07
Martin,
Just going a bit out of topic. Do you think the magazine style tabular banners below the blog posts in my blog look good? Or do they look messy?
milo (72 comments)21 September 07
Well, a fluid layout (incl. max width) can easily stretch from the 800px to 2000px, even with a four column outfit.
Just online shops tend to be fixed on a 800 resolution, wonder why.
Shine (5 comments)21 September 07
Hi. When I started I thought 2-side-bar is better. Now, I am wondering if I’m choosing a new layout, maybe this time I’m try one with on 1 side bar so that I can accomodate both large and small widgets. But as you said, it takes some planning and maintainence to keep the clutter to the minimal.
Michael Martin (1319 comments)21 September 07
Slevi – It is ruthless, because it’s so elitist. Not everyone has the money to upgrade so frequently, and more importantly, very few of us have the need to. Stop looking at this from a developer’s point of view, and start looking from a normal person’s point of view.
What’s the difference between IE6 and IE7? As far as they’re concerned, very, very little.
And okay, look back at the W3 stats. You put a nice slant on the year and a half = 25% drop thing. Thinking rationally though, most of that drop will have occurred in the months following IE7’s release. That’s over and done with now, and the people who really care about upgrading have already done so. As such, IE6 usage has plateaued. It has dropped 6% in 9 months.
It’s up to you how you design your sites. Personally, I try to give every person the best experience possible. Check out this site in IE6. It works a charm.
goldfries – Agreed. It’s the same case here. Sticking with 800×600 wouldn’t have made any sense.
Kristarella – Well said.
Michael Martine – Yep, that’s probably the most popular method of doing it. They’re called “faux columns.”
Dave – It really has!
And thanks for the link, and your explanation of how you browse. As a user, I always focus on just one thing at a time. I remove all clutter and work full-screen. As such, I probably don’t consider non-maximised browsing as often as I should.
Darjan – Good examples. There are definitely a good few reasons why 800×600 is still in use.
Nuts & Milk – lol – On this post, I don’t think many of us have been on topic with our comments.
It’s an interesting idea. I’ve never seen something quite like it, but I would say that it’s probably a little too much. Is there a way you could pad it out a little more, to lessen the clutter? And perhaps edit the 2 ads in the middle? (The design of them makes them feel more cluttered, as the various components are quite spread out). The actual designs and colors though look great, and I love how it’s all using the white background. They don’t feel like ads at all.
milo – In theory they can, but in practice there are also a fair few difficulties. A design that looks great at 800 width doesn’t always look so good when it’s been doubled for a larger resolution. Background images become a problem and even the width of the content area can be a nuisance.
Shine – It does take a bit of thought to set it up right, but if the 2 sidebars are next to each other, it wouldn’t be too hard to make changes at a later date. For example, if I wanted to add a large widget to Pro Blog Design, I could definitely do it. It would just need to be placed at the top or bottom of the sidebar.
David Airey (55 comments)21 September 07
You’re really doing well with your comments, Michael. Congratulations! I wanted to read them before replying, but there are too many, and I’m about to cook dinner.
Therefore, I’ll be brief. I used to have two columns, but that was only for a couple of weeks, when I first started blogging. Since then, I’ve always used three (two sidebars), and until the past two months, I had both sidebars on the right. Now I have a sidebar on both sides of the content, more like a traditional website. I think people not familiar with blogs find it easier to navigate, even though I’ve not tested my theory.
Anyway, there’s my stomach rumbling again. Ciao for now!
Michael Martin (1319 comments)21 September 07
lol David – The comments get a little off topic with the screen resolution debate anyway.
I think the layout you have currently would be the one to work best for you. There is a lot of content in your sidebars, so 3 columns is definitely best.
Your sidebars are almost all text links, and there are a lot of them. Placing the 2 columns together would most likely cause readers to block the 2 columns as one giant set of links. I can’t find the words to explain it well, but the content column separates the 2 columns into 2 distinct, more manageable, sections. It’s a lot more user friendly.
Nuts & Milk (12 comments)22 September 07
Michael
Take a look now
Michael Martin (1319 comments)22 September 07
Much nicer. Well done!
sbpoet (10 comments)22 September 07
“Few things look worse than a sidebar overextending the content area.”
Why?
Since many folks come in on a page/post, rather than the main page, this is sometimes unavoidable anyway.
I, for some old-timer reason, prefer balance — I like the main column and the sidebar to be approximately the same length.
But I also like exploratory sidebars, sidebars that tell me more about the blogger (of course, I’m a fan of personal blogs.)
OK, I’m still struggling with all this minimalism hoo-ha. I understand the reasoning for having a quick-loading page. That makes sense to me.
I don’t understand the reasoning behind ‘nothing that’s not utilitarian’ — I mean, the web is a visual experience, is it not? Why should it not be beautiful?
Feel free to disagree. Feel free to tell me what to take off the sidebar.
I might even do it. Or I might not.
Re: 2 or 3 columns — I tried three, but it just didn’t ‘feel’ right for my personal blog (though I do use it on Blogging Blog. And my main column is narrow because I post poems (don’t cringe; I’m a pretty good poet) and they can look lost in a wide (or fluid) column.
So I think it depends on what you do.
Michael Martin (1319 comments)22 September 07
Hey sbpoet, nice to see you again!
As with all aspects of design, personal preference definitely comes into it. Watermark is your personal blog, and designing it to the style you personally like is fine.
My opinion is that all web pages exist for the content firstly. The sidebar and everything else is an accomplice to that content. Having a sidebar that overshadows the content area implies the opposite to that. If there is more in the sidebar, then how much work has gone into the content?
The design of the site also comes into it. It doesn’t look so bad on your blog, but can you imagine it here on Pro Blog Design? It wouldn’t blend quite so well.
The idea of minimalism is to place more emphasis on the content you do have. To demonstrate, lets say each person has 100 units of interest to spend on your page. If you have 10 things in your sidebar, then each section will get 10 units of interest spent on them. If you reduce those 10 things down to just 2 though, then each of them will have 50 units of interest spent on them.
Obviously things aren’t quite so mathematically precise in real life, but that’s the basic idea. Minimalism is used to draw more attention to the elements that really matter (Like category lists and adverts).
With that said, your blog is a personal blog, and I’ve said before that personal blogs are unique. The same rules don’t always apply. I imagine that many of your readers are loyal readers (They come back a lot)? For loyal readers, a long sidebar is good for the reason you gave (A lot to explore), but for first-time visitors, a long sidebar is offputting and unlikely to be looked at. It’s up to you which group you want to please most.
Great question btw. I’m glad you asked it.
sbpoet (10 comments)23 September 07
OK, just because I like this topic — why doesn’t the sidebar count as content?
On my blog, of course, part of my goal is to send folks to other places they might like, and that is not usually a priority for problogs. But even then — isn’t the sidebar either links to more of the blogger’s content, or other related/interesting places?
& yes, I have fairly loyal readers, that’s true. They like the content — and at least some of them like the sidebar, the design (though that keeps changing.)
Since I do like sidebars, I still have a hard time grasping that some find it ‘offputting’ — it feels like bias to me, rather than thoughtfulness — you know, they’ve heard long sidebars are bad, so they must be bad.
?
Actually, I’d be very interested in your blogroll, or bloglines, or whatever — because your content interests me, I expect to be interested in what interests you.
kristarella (141 comments)23 September 07
@sbpoet
I guess the sidebar is only content in a limited way, because mostly it’s used for admin stuff, e.g. navigation, subscription, links etc.
If it were true content, then one would expect you to post about it as well – perhaps links would be something you’d post about and then transfer to your sidebar.
When a sidebar gets too lengthy, my feelings towards it are not ‘bad because someone said so’, but rather it makes me feel like the author couldn’t be bothered to pick out their very favourite things to share. They just keep adding things and expect you to sift through it, rather than thinking what’s the best stuff there. Do you know what I mean? I’m not saying you’ve done that – I can see that you’ve divided different types of links in your sidebar with shells, that’s not a bad idea.
Michael Martin (1319 comments)23 September 07
sbpoet – I would say that it isn’t content because the sidebar in itself does not answer a reader’s question, give them or enjoyment, or help them in some way. Only content does that. The sidebar just gives them a means of finding other content.
As for the length being offputting, it’s not that I’ve had that idea ingrained in me, it’s that I’m impatient, like most other users. When I see a large sidebar, I just don’t have the time to read through it. When I see a short one though, I can glance over it in no time.
And that’s also why I said that this doesn’t apply to loyal visitors. Loyal visitors aren’t impatient because they know your site is worth spending time on. In that case, the long sidebar works.
I can see your point about wanting to know more, and it’s a very valid point. On this blog, I certainly don’t offer much in the way of that, and you could be right that adding it would improve my blog. It’s about finding balance though. Perhaps instead of adding all that content to my sidebar, I could start a tumblelog? Or link to my StumbleUpon profile? Or BlogLines? Or anything else that would only require one link in my sidebar. Whatever keeps the balance.
kristarella (141 comments)23 September 07
Or making thing expandable can be a good way to keep things neat, but still have things there… didn’t you write a post about that?
Michael Martin (1319 comments)23 September 07
Kristarella – lol – True.
Sbpoet has actually done that one a couple of the sections. She went over the sidebar not too long ago.
sbpoet (10 comments)24 September 07
And — I’ve pruned it some more. Of course, I’m trying for better than “It doesn’t look so bad on your blog”.
Some things I removed after Skellie’s review were returned at the request of my readers. They said they use the ‘recent comments’ to know at a glance if someone has responded to them — TypePad doesn’t offer comment subscriptions. It there’s a way to do that with basic templates, I don’t know it.
Readers also wanted the mood widget back, and twitter updates. I’ve done a twitter link instead of updates — we’ll see if that does the trick.
I use ‘Recent Posts’ since I have only five on the front page (to speed loading) and the list has ten. Instead of ‘popular posts’ I do ‘favorite posts’ that I select — since my most popular posts tend to be cat posts, which I consider a sideline.
But I still do ‘pretty.’
Michael Martin (1319 comments)24 September 07
sbpoet – It does look a lot better now than when I first saw it. You’re doing well.
(And I can understand keeping a Twitter update. It’s nice to keep up with someone)
The only thing remaining that I would remove from the sidebar is some of the Top Supporters sections. You currently have a Top Supporters Romlet, a “Wholinked” section, a Technorati link and Referrers section. They’re all doing practically the same thing. (You could also get rid of the “Google Bombs” section. They don’t really work.)
sbpoet (10 comments)24 September 07
I’ve been struggling with my conscience about the Google Bombs for weeks now. Since you assure me they don’t work, I removed them.
I also took off the “WhoLinked” box.
I think I’m done, for the moment.
What I miss: the MyBlogLog & BlogCatalog widgets — those friendly faces…
I am really enjoying your blog, btw — and your feedback. & I do encourgae you to add a link to your Bloglines, and your delicious bookmarks — I’d love to see them.
Michael Martin (1319 comments)24 September 07
Well, you could swap out the Romlet for the MyBlogLog widget? (Depending on which you prefer.
)
But yeah, you’ve made some good changes to the sidebar, and I’m glad you enjoyed the blog. I’m looking into adding something to the sidebar (have been for a week now. Not great with decisions! xD ), but just for you, here are my delicious bookmarks.
sbpoet (10 comments)24 September 07
Ah, yes, you see, this is the difference: where you have a hard time choosing *even* one, I have a hard time choosing *only* one.
I’m sticking with romlet for the moment, since it links back to the referrer, and the blog network widgets link back to the network.
Thanks for the delicious link — & did you get my email?
Michael Martin (1319 comments)25 September 07
Your call. It’s a nice looking widget any way.
And I’ll check my emails now.
Maximillian Gunther (4 comments)3 October 07
Whether to choose 2 or 3 column would be determined mostly by User Experience design, or in this case Visitor Experience design. I think the resolution issue will become obselete. We should consider about the scrolling more.
The 3 column might seems better since we can put more stuff in sidebars. But who says that the more we have in the sidebar is the better? How bout the empty space we have when we have all the widgets in upper side. I dont think it would look good, subjectively.
Anyway, it’s a nice blog. Glad I find it. I’m tagging it
Michael Martin (1319 comments)4 October 07
I suppose it comes down to opinion Maximillian. On Pro Blog Design for instance, we have that space in the sidebars that you mentioned. I could definitely squeeze it all into one column, but I do quite like the white space. It means that when reading the articles, there is less distracting you.
(Though of course, that won’t apply to all blogs.
)
Mario Sanchez (1 comments)24 October 07
In my opinion it is better to use a two column layout, if only because there is less opportunity for distraction. Customers become confused when presented with too many options, and conversion suffers. A three column layout offers the temptation of cluttering the site with too many useless widgets like ads, photo groups, subscription counters, feed chicklets, etc. that draw visitors away from the really important tasks, like clicking on links to high value areas of the site and subscribing.
Michael Martin (1319 comments)24 October 07
Mario – I agree that the less confusion, the better. However, assuming that the blogger wants 6 widgets. He could either put them all into one long sidebar, or 2 sidebars that are half the length.
The sooner the sidebar stops, the better usually.
Tetsu (1 comments)13 May 08
I personally like the 3-column layout because I want my readers to focus their eyes on the center content first before straying to the sides. After all, isn’t my article the one I’d want them to read? Once they finish reading that, then their eyes can explore the whole page, still passing by the center content every now and then. That’s how I would like my visitors to go through. haha!
But then again sometimes I find it difficult to fill the two sidebars. I’m a no-clutter type of person and sometimes when using 3-column layouts I go out of my way to look for things to stick in there which kind of defeats the purpose doesn’t it.
Angelo Amoroso (1 comments)11 July 08
SLIRK Layout: multiple column proportional scrolling layout.
It’s under developement (beta release) and lot of bugs are not fixed, but I want to share it (Common Creative GNU GPL Licence) through the web 2.0 community. I’ll continue to increase efficiency, reliability and browsers compatibility.
Coming soon CMS (for blog too) based on.
I hope in your interest.
Alison Noel (1 comments)13 November 08
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BK (3 comments)3 February 09
Yes I also use 3 coloumns to make efisien blog
NeverTooLateGuitar (5 comments)9 August 09
Just came across this post… guess you changed your mind with the new design
Michael Martin (1319 comments)9 August 09
lol – Yep! I’m using a 2 column layout for the same reasons mentioned above though. Just the priorities have changed so the advantages of 2 columns appeal more than the advantages of 3 now
Web Host Right (16 comments)18 August 09
I cant say ive got a solid preference for either, definately a case of whatever suits the situation.
Hans (17 comments)9 November 09
I prefer 3 column if you want make many widget in your blog, (busy blog). But, if you want your blog seen professional, you can choose 2 column and go…
Carlos Abler (1 comments)11 December 09
Three column layouts are especially nice if you can assign a purpose to the columns.
For example I try to have functionality on the right, have parent-type control and ownership to content in the middle. Functionality on the left, more for cross-linking and other “What’s Next” type calls-to-action.
Furniture Lift (21 comments)27 February 10
If I will be ask which of that two I like more. I will choose the 2 column because for me I can show my content more wider in a 2 column rather that 3 column.