I have come across a number of Web sites in the past few weeks whose designers have adopted a maximum page width of 540 pixels. Not Yahoo, CNN or other high-traffic mass sites, but smaller sites like lemonyellow.com. I imagine this is a response to misconceptions about how their pages might look under WebTV. Worry not: WebTV seems to ignore your width attributes, although Windows CE and the various Palm browsers may well be a different story.

When I was doing the redesign of the IDRC public site in 1997 it was a bit of a leap for many around the project to imagine a standard 600 pixel width; 17 inch monitors are standard within the Centre and there was some concern that the pages would be "too narrow." Now it goes without saying that creating a readable column is critical, with an emphasis on the content itself.