Hi I was wondering what size to have my sidebar I was thinking of one of the following options.. 1. floated right 300px 2. sidebar1 floated right 120px + a sidebar2 floated left 120px 3. floated right 120px 4. any other suggestion What is your opinion, do you think it really matters? I was wondering if 300px might be a bit too obtrusive..
You might want to have a look at something called 'the golden ratio'. Is basically a ratio of 1:1.618 and it supposed to be aesthetically pleasing. Some people use it in web design. There is lots written no it. Just google it. Hope this helps.
is your site's layout fixed or fluid? if it's fluid, i would use em sizes, that way, with larger fonts, your sidebar will expand and contract accordingly. if it's fixed, i'd probably just play with different sizes and see what looks good...
Funny enough i saw this on a tv show called braniac in the UK only yesterday they used this ratio to see on peoples faces to see if they could distinguish a beautiful/ugly person using the ratio lol.. It is fluid to an extent i think i'll just have a mess around and see what looks best, and also try to incorporate the ratio! Thanks for the advice!
What content will go in the sidebars? (main navigation, titles for articles, tabbed Ajax interface, adsense) Wider sidebars may be better to list post/article titles, display popular, recent posts etc. Narrow may work just fine for your main site navigation, categories etc. It may also be useful to know how many 800x600 visitors you're getting if any.
I like 275px and 200px, basically to fit standard ad-sizes. 275px is good for a 250x250 box. It's also wide enough to list article titles and stuff (as noted down below). A thinner, 200px sidebar is good for a tall skyscraper (160px wide), as well as category/navigation links. If you've got a site designed for 1024x768, I don't think 275 px is too wide. However, if you're aiming at 800x600, you should stick with the thinner sidebar and only one of them. - Walkere
There are some good tips above this post! Keep in mind that you have to allow for the IE FF differences. For a 1024 x 3 column display I like 220 160 and the main content section getting the remainder. Something like that. Visit one of the first two sig links for the real numbers.