So while I am working towards reworking the copy of my site, I started debating with myself what resolution should I be targeting to optimize the site and making sure that the text reads easy enough. My site is targeted at the Jupiter Florida real estate market. www.KeysToFlorida.com Thanks for sharing!!! Dave
I would optimize for 1024x768... That is pretty common... you won't get too many people with lower resolutions than that, and if the site looks good at 1024x768.. unless they have a mega high resolution, higher resolutions should look fine.. I would definately optimize for 1024x768..
1024 x 768 seems to be the standard at the moment. Here is some data from one of my sites. Res Percent ---------------- 1024x768 44.51% 1280x1024 26.47% 1152x864 6.14% 800x600 5.73% 1600x1200 5.02% 1400x1050 4.11% 1280x800 2.00% 1280x960 1.41% 1680x1050 1.22% 1920x1200 0.84% Ross
I still make the sites compatible for 800x600, here's some data from one of my sites: 1) 1024 X 768 - 52.33% 2) 800 X 600 - 33.24% 3) 1280 X 1024 - 8.33% 4) 1152 X 864 - 2.21% 5) 640 X 480 - 0.99% 6) 1280 X 800 - 0.50%
Yeah I think it's time we conveniently 'forget' about the 800x600 people. Time for them to move on or start scrolling horizontally. All the unused space when designing for 800x600 is a big waste. Sometimes you have to put things below the fold whilst there's big empty space on the sides which could be making money instead. My stats, last 430 visitors: 207 1024x768 142 1280x1024 45 800x600 25 1152x864 9 1600x1200 1 unknown
What's wrong with a fluid layout? I still try to make things work for 800x600. And those with larger screen resolutions get the site spread out to work within whatever browser size they are using. Don't forget that although a screen res may be set at 1024x768, it doesn't mean that their browser window is open at that size. My windows are often only 800px wide when working on a 1024px wide res. And I hate to scroll sideways. It would seem a bad idea to me to make your sites work only for 1024 and upwards.
I still design for 800x600. Most of my clients are small business owners and most are set at 800x600 resolutions. I hope I don't get a request for any higher, as my Dell Laptop only goes to 1024x768. I haven't used a desktop for development since 1998.
Have to go with the 'keep it fluid' arguments, but that does creat problems all of it own. A lot of surfers keep their side bars open as well - which eats into your real estate. I think 800 width is a good size to aim for even with the 1024 users being more prelevent these days.
You can't ignore the 800x600 folks. Sure they're a small minority on a per day basis, but multiply that by weekly basis, then monthly basis, and then yearly -- and you're going out of your way to tick off a LOT of potential visitors. My site depends on repeat visitors and loyalty, and I would never go out of my way to give the 800x600 group the finger, which is why I keep the site fluid, and make sure when the 800x600 res comes on, the site isn't so squeezed that it's impossible to read the content. I've seen sites with squeezed in content, with ads cluttering up the place, and it looks awful.
1024x768 is the resoulation i always use because thats what most people use these days.. well thats what i found out in my aw stats
Even if 1024x768 is the "common" view size, you still gotta work to 800x600, which doesn't actually mean 800px width pages. 760px, 740px or even 720px is 'safe' - don't forget the browser's vertical scrollbars will eat a few pixels off the screen realestate... Using both min-width: and max-width: in stylesheets for the "container" will keep the page between your two sizes, as sometimes fluid 100% pages really don't look that good (I never use less than 1600x1200)
But your stats are only measuring the size of their screen, not the size of their browser. I'd be quite happy to hazard a guess that most people have browser real estate of less than 1000 px wide.
I can't believe so many people are designing for 1024 px width. It's simply not good design practice...and leads to side-scrolling hell and exiting visitors. 800 px or 95% width is preferrable. I don't ascribe to the "wasted real estate" myth....and I even run my own monitor at 1600x1200.
True, talking about "wasted" real estate is a strange concept. Imagine if some keyboard manufacturer figured out that 95% of desks were more than a meter wide. It's still not a good reason to make the keyboard that size !! Often, a nice contained layout that will work on 800 px screens is just easier to take in. Most newspapers here have switched to tabloid format these days instead of broadsheet - it's much the same issue really. One thing that I've noticed since I started working on my cinema display with 1680 px across is that I don't actually WANT my site to spread all the way across the screen. The CSS 'max-width' style in a fluid layout is very useful in such scenarios - shame it isn't supported by all browsers !!
Just a thought. If you design your site for 1024X768, you won't get a lot of repeat traffic from the 800X600s and so, your stats will show a low number of 800X600s. What's causing what?? In factm forget about repeat visitors, it would be highly unlikely for a person with 800x600 res. to "comfortably" browse a higher res. site. I still design for 800X600s and I try to program so that the sites work on slow PC using dial-up and IE4.0 or something. In my opinion, the more flash bits you add to your site, the narrower your target audience becomes.
IE4? Hmm, at .25% that's one I don't care much for. I'm trying to make things at least accessible to archaic browsers, but I don't spend any time making it look good. Browsers are a somewhat different issue. In one way, people almost need to be discouraged from using their old insecure browsers. It's in their own best interest really. Screen sizes on the other hand are a different issue. Sure, on the one hand screen resolutions are becoming larger, but on the other hand they're also becoming smaller and smaller these days. Forget about 800 x 600. What about 80 x 112 ? What does your site look like on my mobile phone?? And who knows, maybe in a year from now we'll all be browsing the internet on our 640 x 480 in-fridge touchscreen
800 x 600 is still the default resolution for Windows installations, even with XP Professional. I don't think a lot of people know how to change the resolution. To appeal to the widest audience, Web developers have always had to develop for the lowest common denominator. If your site appeals to the average home user, you'll find a much greater use of 800 x 600. The more technically inclined tend to crank this up. I find it irritating when I run into sites that require me to scroll right. I usually run at 1024 x 768 and I still find sites that require me to scroll right.
You would be suprised how many sites look horribly cluttered at 800x600 just because of poor designing. Unless you are going to make they layout dynamic using %, I would stick to 780-750 px width range. Like what da22in said, its just good habit to design for 800x600 since there is still a decent % of people using that res. You can't foget about the minority here
Target for your audience. If it's Florida real estate, there might be alot of elderly follks who have default installs or 800x600 because it's easier on their eyes.