Help With Browser Size in Layout Design

How can you determine the best placement of elements on your web site, such as a donate button or an RSS subscription button?  The Google Browser Size tool attempts to tell you where the best placement might be.  Depending on the size of the browser window, some of your web site’s parts may be seen – and some might be missed.  Both of these ideas should be taken into consideration when designing a web site.  The Google Browser Size tool is here to help.

The tool is easy to use, all you do is go to browsersize.googlelabs.com and enter your web site’s URL into the box.  You can also select the opacity level of the overlaying information too.

Here is a little more information about the tool from Google:

This is useful for ensuring that important parts of a page’s user interface are visible by a wide audience. On the example page that you see when you first visit this site, there is a “donate now” button which falls within the 80% contour, meaning that 20% of users cannot see this button when they first visit the page. 20% is a significant number; knowing this fact would encourage the designer to move the button much higher in the page so it can be seen without scrolling.

The Google Browser Size tool is well worth bookmarking.  It is a great companion to any web designers out there that need a quick and easy to use web site to judge how well important elements on a web site will (or will not) be seen.