On the scale of Google I wonder if that little bit of added complexity lower overall click through on the ads.
Wonder why they don't also stretch the search out across the page like their top bar is, when you have 1920 pixels across it seems cramped.
Because lines which allow for more than, say, one hundred characters are a bad idea?
If you try different display options you will see that the width of the pages is designed around such a line length limit. They don’t shy away from going wider when they don’t show text (try Images) or from using a additional column (try Updates). This suggests to me that they know of the space they have, they just don’t want to fill it by mindlessly lengthening lines.
Certainly not, sure not all layouts can easily scale, but I think Google could afford to maintain a few different widths.
I realise from my own web design and development experience that this is easier said than done but on their scale and the problems that they deal with I don't think it's to unreasonable.
Comments
On the scale of Google I wonder if that little bit of added complexity lower overall click through on the ads. Wonder why they don't also stretch the search out across the page like their top bar is, when you have 1920 pixels across it seems cramped.
Because lines which allow for more than, say, one hundred characters are a bad idea?
If you try different display options you will see that the width of the pages is designed around such a line length limit. They don’t shy away from going wider when they don’t show text (try Images) or from using a additional column (try Updates). This suggests to me that they know of the space they have, they just don’t want to fill it by mindlessly lengthening lines.
Yeah, but have you seen the percentage of users with > 1280 pixels? Certainly not the majority.
Certainly not, sure not all layouts can easily scale, but I think Google could afford to maintain a few different widths.
I realise from my own web design and development experience that this is easier said than done but on their scale and the problems that they deal with I don't think it's to unreasonable.
The reason they made it fixed width is to bring the ads closer to the results. It was a financial move on their part.