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Krishna Tej Ch
Krishna Tej Ch

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Discussion on personal developer websites with large padding on desktops

Hi all,

I was going through lot of developers personal sites. In most of them, I have observed that while browsing the site in desktop it has lot of padding on both sides, so much that even though I am browsing it on the desktop, I feel like I am reading it on a mobile device.

I understand now the whole web works on mobile-first approach. But I wanted to understand if it's a consequence of following mobile first approach or an intentional behavior.

If it is an intentional behavior, what could be the rationale behind it?

Please comment below

Top comments (4)

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chiangs profile image
Stephen Chiang

If it's not a landing page or a graphic intensive layout, there should be enough padding to where the text doesn't go so wide that it's hard to read, just like a physical text book... However, the amount of space available should be better utilized than mobile layout.

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christopherkade profile image
Christopher Kade • Edited

I can't quote my source here, but I've read multiple times that shorter lines help people focus and be more comfortable while reading.

Take my own blog for example: christopherkade.com, each article is centred while the previous iteration of this blog was much, much wider which tended to be a recurring complain.

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chkrishnatej profile image
Krishna Tej Ch

Yes, that seems like a valid point.

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eli profile image
Eli Bierman • Edited

Iā€™m guilty of that. I designed for mobile first, and was planning to do desktop later, but just never got to it later. The mobile layout was all I needed at the time. Iā€™d rather leave blank space and keep line lengths readable, but I agree that the design feels lacking on a larger screen. Thanks for bringing this up, it reminds me to do a design update for desktop. :-)