Fixing the width on Huddle

Posted by Jaan on February 3rd, 2011 | 1 comment

In mid January we took the Huddle web app to fixed width. Up until then it had been horizontally free flowing, aka dynamic width. In real terms this meant Huddle could look entirely different depending on the browser width a user happened to have chosen (or the width of their screen if they went full screen).

For me it was an easy decision to advocate the change to fixed width as in my professional judgement it would be an improvement for our customers. Like in any organization with passionate people this wasn’t always an easy sell, but eventually the arguments for fixed width outweighed the (often very good) reasons to stick with the way things were. That, and I can be quite persuasive (or nagging, depending on your point of view…).

In the end the project got green lit and off we went.

These are the top three reasons I conveyed across our company for why fixed width was the
right way to go. They are also the reasons I think every product team should fix their app’s width:

Everything is always in the same place

Your users no longer need to go looking across their wide external desktop screens for that button that is front and center on their smaller laptop screens. Don’t underestimate the importance of this deceptively simple point. Huddle’s customers told us this was important and chances are yours will too.

It looks better, on a deeper level

Aesthetics aside, we humans relate better to information when it is consistently displayed and follows a few basic rules. Having text, navigation and controls show up in the same place on the screen is the most basic rule of all.

It takes a burden of the shoulders of designers, developers and testers

When there are less things to code, test and worry about the product team can focus on building a better product instead of second and triple guessing what the app may look and behave like under a myriad of circumstances. It is hard to gage the precise time savings, but it’s already paid dividend even for myself in my daily work.

Having said all that, what did our audience think? I can honestly, hand on heart, say that the feedback was 100% positive. We didn’t receive a single negative or even skeptic comment. On the contrary, the change to fixed width connected positively with our customers on many levels.

In just over a week we release the next round of improvements to Huddle. Post on that to follow.

Here’s how we introduced fixed width to our customers on the Huddle blog: Improving your Huddle