Do we need to design for 800x600 ?

i usually design fixed designs with a width of 760px

 

We are living in the 21st century already

 

Isn't it obvious? Why waste all that screen real estate?

I tried to think of an app that needs to be maximized on a large monitor. The closest I could find might be a spreadsheet, but only occasionally. Most of the time, you're working in a limited area. Plus, you might need another document open from which you draw data.

Photoshop? I don't know. I use the GIMP with its individual windows that need only be as large as the image, or image portion you're working on. Much easier to have the multiple windows in view.

Further, in my preferred work platform, I'll have three or four desktops, each with a related group of apps open. For example, for web development, I'll have Opera, Konqueror, Iceweasel, Emacs and an xterm open. (IE will exist on an old Windows box) On desktop 2, I'll run Icedove, Iceweasel, Emacs and an xterm. Desktop 3 has GIMP and an xterm. Desktop 4 usually has a few xterms open, plus Emacs for miscellaneous stuff. Right now, I am also logged into 3 ptys for sys admin work as root.

None of these are any wider than they have to be. I can easily drag and drop from one to another, because everything's in view. With four browsers open and side by side, cross browser comparisons are a trivial matter. For my own browsing, the narrower UA makes reading text easier[1]. I can easily work in Emacs while having reference material available and in view.

So, yes. People who run their apps maximized are less able to be as productive as those who run their apps at the minimum usable width.

cheers,

gary

[1]Many studies have been done, and agree that a sixty,or so, character line is much easier to read than one that is wider. At common font sizes, that's 480px or fewer. Guess what. That fits an 800px wide browser window beautifully.

 

It depends on the site but im pretty much 50/50 with 800x600 and 1024x768.

 

Good question.. I have all my sites made for 800x600 but only 2% of people that visit them use that resolution. I almost thought I can move to a higher resolution but that comment about people not reading the pages maximized made a good point.

 

I agree that it completely depends on your audience. If you're targeting a highly visual, young, tech-oriented audience, then I say no way. But if you're going for a lo-tech content (where it's not highly visual) or older audience, chances are they're using 800x600.

Everytime I work on a new site, this question comes up. With so many flat panel monitors now available fairly cheap, more and more users are snatching them up. When I bought myself one a few months ago, I went with the 17" because it was only a few dollars more and I was suprised to see that it barely even supports 800x600. In fact they recommend against doing that, and starting at 1024 as a minimum.

So just as I feel the penny should be outlawed (that's another argument ), I say don't bother with 800x600 unless it makes no difference to your code/site.

 

I don't think he meant "less productive" in a derogatory sense. What I tool away from his comment was that there still are a lot of people who don't run a browser in a full-screen-width window. A lot of Mac users, for example.

 

It is surprising what a large number of us still design for 800x600!!! I was expecting maybe 10-20% to say that 800x600 is indispensible, and the rest to say they have moved - oh boy, was I wrong!!

 

I find it amazing so many people say they ignore the 800x600 users.. I wouldnt be surprised if 800x600 levels off at a permanent level as a result of people getting older. My parents for example know about 1024x768 however they run their system at 800x600 because its easier on their eyes. You also have the users running on tv out packages which could be increasing in the coming years, and then you have users running multiple screens, or single very large screens with multiple applications inside. Plus what do you do when somebody wants to minimize things to compare.. I do that all the time...

800x600 is going to be around for years... my sites still get around 15% with this resolution. Thats thousands a month who are paying customers. I'll ignore it once it gets down to a 2% or so if that ever happens.

 

to be honest there is no really need to design for 800 by 600 any more, however i still do use it but i set mine as 800 by 1000 mainly because most people that i have worked with say they dont want there website to be any wider than 800px wide.

 

I wasn't being overly kind. If an employee of mine were running his browsers maximized without compelling reasons, I would quite rightly infer he was not working efficiently. Retraining that employee would be a serious consideration.

Those big monitors are for displaying more data, not spreading the same data over a larger space. The power user knows that. The amateur doesn't.

cheers,

gary

 

I still design for 800px width, however I don't know how much longer I will be doing this.

Another thing I would like to mention, is that you should take your demographic into consideration. Though the W3 stats may say that 14% of people still use an 800x600 screen resolution, you must understand that this data has been extrapolated over the entire internet (what do you think the margin of error is for that?). Your particular site may only recieve 2% of visitors who still use this resolution.

 

I receive about 14% on my site.. many others do, even my seo oriented site gets around 9%.

 

if you site is for advanced users then definitely only for 1024x768 and above as no-one in their right mind uses anything below that any more!

 

Thats also what I do, around 760px upto 780px, seems so much easier.

When doing the liquid layouts before in table-less css it was always easy to make them work in FireFox and Opera, used to just do for the body like 125px from the left and 0px from the right (125 px for nav) and the body used to expand nicely in FireFox and Opera. IE just ignored it all and messed up the page.

 

I really don't like designs that take up the whole screen. I think they are bulky. I have yet to see a design for 1024x768 or higher that I liked. And my screen resolution is 1280x800.

 

To conclude I might say that though a lot of us do not design or consider 800x600 anymore, in the interest of the 10% of your visitors who do care, it might be good to have a fall-back option and design with 800x600 in mind, even though you might put your best foot forward for 1024x768 or better.

 

I believe 800x600 is a dieing breed. Larger monitors are becoming more cheap. Also companies like Dell I believe are packing more 19' inch monitors. Some even wide screens, and I know just about every designer or programmer has dual monitors and if not dual at least a 19' inch wide screen. But of coarse it all depends on the site and you plan to do with it. As the years or even months go by you will see 1024x768 become more standard. Of coarse this is just my opinion as a web designer.

 

well, i design for 1024x768 to meet the satisfaction of the majority of the web viewers globally.