I used
Ramani's fixed width 3 column New Blogger template (Update: I have since changed to 4 column template) for all my main blogs. The reasons:
To cater to visitors with small screen
From statistics obtained from
Statcounter, I find that 5 to 20% of my visitors are still using the small screen 800x600 resolution
(Update: now 800x600 less than 2%), and these visitors will just be able to see the whole width of my blogs without having to scroll horizontally when I use
Ramani's fixed width 3 column New Blogger template (Update: now using slightly wider 4 column Minima template) for my blogs. (Note: If you are viewing this blog with a large screen, and will like to know how it appear to a small screen visitor, type or copy-paste
javascript:top.resizeTo(800,600)
into the address bar and press enter).
Even big websites with very knowledgeable webmaster like
BBC News uses a template which take into consideration visitors with small screens. If you visit BBC News with a large screen, you will probably also see blank "wasted" space on your screen, just like this blog.
If I use other templates, visitors with small screen may be forced to scroll horizontally to see the rest of the right side of the blog if I use a fixed width wider format template, or the main column or sidebars may be squeezed into narrow columns if I use a fluid width template. Also, with a fluid width template, I have to be careful to make sure the width of images, scroll boxes, tables, etc, will fit into the narrow columns when such visitors visit my sites. Otherwise, they may find the sidebar or main column pushed to the bottom of the page or see other problems.
Readability issues
The writer of this site
max-width in Internet Explorer recommend that that a good reading width, should be around 60 CPL (characters per line), which is approximately the CPL of the main column of this blog, using
Ramani's fixed width 3 column New Blogger template. His recommendation is based on a readability study done by the department of psychology at Wichita State University, entitled
The Effects of Line Length on Children and Adults’ Online Reading Performance.
Plain or fanciful templates
Some may find this blog very plain with very little graphic and colors. This is my choice. I do not have to worry about hosting graphics, especially if the graphics for the templates are hosted by someone else. If those graphics disappear from the web, the blogs using those fanciful templates with lots of graphics will have big problems. The solution is of course to host the graphics yourself, but you mus know how to do it. This will probably be discussed in another post. Also, I don't want visitors to be distracted by graphics but I just want to focus on the content.
Choice of templates is a very personal thing
However, some bloggers may not like the empty wide spaces on both sides of this blog when viewing with larger screen resolutions such as 1024x768, 1152x864, etc. For them, they may choose fluid width templates which will adjust the width of the main column according to the screen resolution of the blog visitors (note the reference to width of photos, scroll boxes, etc. above) or use fixed width wider format templates if they don't mind forcing small screen visitors having to scroll horizontally to see the rest of the side of the blog.
Third party New Blogger templates
You can find New Blogger templates modified or created by third parties at
New Blogger templates (mostly 3 columns), tested with demonstration and test blogs. This will be updated as I keep adding new templates as time permits.
