Web Development Tools
How to Conduct a Trial run for your Website Design
One of the final steps when creating a website is testing your site through actual trial runs. These include the functionality and usability of the site and the display resolution it has. Different users have different monitors meaning different screen resolution. How can you tell if your website is being displayed correctly on a screen that is smaller or larger? There are various methods you can use but I have centred on the easiest way possible for you to test the resolution of your website. Everyone, no matter who they are, will likely pick the simplest method to achieve their answer, this is why no matter how thorough and complete a process is, and chances are that not everyone will use it due to its complicated procedure.
Reason to Test under Various Screen Resolutions
Simply put, you want for your website to appear properly under different resolutions. Different types of text format can yield different results and can cause some of your text to appear completely off screen. This is results in a horrid looking website and that is not what you want other users to experience when opening your site.
What are the Resolution Sizes I should check?
The most common screen resolutions that users use vary from their monitor and their graphics card. But here are the bare bones of the most widely used resolutions:
800 x 600 (Lowest resolution)
1024 x 768
1280 x 800
1400 x 900
1680 x 1050 (Common in Hi-def monitors)
While this list does not include all resolutions, they however present the common resolutions you’ll encounter. Remember that some screen resolution can go higher than 1680 x 1050.
Tools to Test your Websites Resolution
- A monitor that can display the highest possible resolution with no problem. If however, your monitor cannot achieve the highest resolution you desire then focus on the lower resolutions instead.
- You need a screen size program. This is a free application that you can find easily with a quick online search.
Installing and Using the Screen Size Program
Step 1: After you’ve downloaded and installed the program, open it and make sure you have the following options activated. They can be found at the very bottom of the menu.
Display the size icon
Show tools when resizing
Add the screen size program in the system start up menu
Step 2: Look for and click the “Add” button and input the screen resolution sizes you wish to test your website in. If your monitor cannot handle high resolution then you should not input those resolutions. Stay within the capability of your monitor in order to have the best results in your test.
Actively Checking your Resolution
Now that you have tested your website design using different screen resolutions and having the screen size tester installed, you can freely test your screen resolution when you update your website by right clicking the icon in your system tray. Remember that every time you update your design, you should always check it under different resolutions no matter how small the changes were.
Making sure that every aspect of your website is running properly is a vital continuous method. No matter how trivial an aspect may seem, it can have very serious effect on your site depending on the system that the visitor is using. This is exactly why you must always check every possible hole in your design. Screen resolution must not be ignored as a website that does not appear properly in certain resolutions is useless to hundreds and thousands of users. Be systematic with your website testing to make sure that you have covered all possible errors once you’ve launched your website.
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