I have really enjoyed reading my last post on fluid design, and I have learned a lot. I have noticed that many people have many ideas about fluid design. So in your opinion what is does fluid design mean?
Fluid design is a layout engineered to allow a site to gracefully adapt to the browsing preferences of each individual visitor. Fixed design is a layout engineered to force site visitors to adapt to the author's viewing preferences.
A definition of fluid and non-fluid designs can be achieved either by looking at what you obtains (the result) or at the means you use to get that result. The result of a fluid design is that the user obtains a usable page whatever size he makes the browser window (within reasonable limits). Usable means that the page's content can be easily understood, and that the user doesn't need to be scroll horizontally to read things that get out of the window. The means used to get this result is not to use absolute measurements in the coding of the page. For example, do not use "width" attributes with values in pixels. Always try to use percentage values. An example is Digital Point forum: you can resize the browser and still read the threads comfortably.