What are your visitors using?

Discussion in 'HTML & Website Design' started by Malachim, Dec 20, 2005.

  1. #1
    I find an awful lot of people design with what works for them. This is great and largely how it should be...

    However, it seems to me that if you are putting up sites with the intention of attracting the great unwashed out there to tramp all over your web space it is as well to know what they are wearing and prepare yourself, eh.

    Anyway, here's what I'm currently seeing lately (December 2005):

    Browsers:
    MS Explorer 6 (down to) 62%
    Firefox leaping up to 29%

    Screen resolution:
    10% are still using 800x600 as the default setting
    The rest are using 1024x768 or better

    Connectivity
    14.5% are stuck languishing with dialup model :eek:
    11.74% I haven't got a clue
    The rest are broadband (and visiting from work : ) )

    I believe my results are fairly typical, but I'm curious if everyone is seeing a similar breakdown.
     
    Malachim, Dec 20, 2005 IP
  2. Bliss

    Bliss Peon

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    #2
    On one of my tech-oriented sites, Firefox and IE are neck in neck with ~50% each. Excellent score for Mozilla's (and my favourite) browser.
     
    Bliss, Dec 20, 2005 IP
  3. the_pm

    the_pm Peon

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    #3
    What's so great about that? One of the most fundamental mistakes developers make during the course of a project is falsely believing everyone uses the Web the same way they do. This can have a devastating effect on a project, particularly if it's being done for a diverse audience.

    No, developers should work consciously to break out of the mindset that designing for themselves is acceptable.

    It varies for me. I have sites where IE is <20%, with Opera and Firefox making up the majority. I have sites where IE is still in the 90-95% range. The range within statistics certainly serves as a reminder to some and a valuable lesson to others that you can never develop with the intent of satisfying a single browsing environment.

    I see this advice all the time: develop for IE, it's still what 90% of the world uses. Here's the problem. What the world uses today may not be what the world uses tomorrow. Best practices can reduce or eliminate the uncertainty factor (future-proof), and it's naive and shortsighted to think that statistics today have any bearing on statistics of the future, except that you can be sure they will change, one way or another.

    It's a cute statistic, but it tells you practically nothing about how much screen real estate is being made available for your site by any given visitor ;)

    I've seen dialup-speed connectivity starting to rise again, what with aircard access and cellphone/PDA access becoming more viable. But certainly the increase in broadband connectivity for traditional PCs is always encouraging :)
     
    the_pm, Dec 20, 2005 IP
  4. Malachim

    Malachim Peon

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    #4
    I was refering more to the aesthetic side of designing while prompting folk to remember to code the under the hood stuff for all visitors. Guess I put it across wrong.

    If you don't like what you are creating you generally don't put the same effort in - and invariably it shows.

    The stats side show trends though, and the trend remains that we as webmasters still need to develop for the lowest common setup. Yep

    (For myself I develop to work in everything, including text based Lynx)
     
    Malachim, Dec 20, 2005 IP
  5. the_pm

    the_pm Peon

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    #5
    Ahhh, ok. That makes a lot more sense :)

    The discussion was about browser usage, so I immediately thought the first line was referencing what browsers the designer uses.

    Stats are helpful, to be sure. We do a great deal of statistics analysis when looking at doing site reengineering, mostly to see where people are leaving sites, where visitors are being converted into customers, and how to improve the user experience as told by the stats. That's just one part of a larger picture, but an important one to be sure.

    The fact that you don't base your development techniques on the "browsing configuration stats du jour" is an excellent thing, and I'm glad you stated this, because it would be unfortunate for someone to infer that stats should determine to what technology you design. Good stuff :)
     
    the_pm, Dec 20, 2005 IP
  6. token20

    token20 Peon

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    #6
    My numbers are pretty funny compared to yours. Most of my sites recieve traffic from US users who are under the age of 17. So naturally I have a poorer and techno illiterate audience.

    Browser:
    92% IE
    6% Firefox - And I assume most of those hits are me :)

    Screen:
    63% 1024x768
    26% 800x600
    4% 600x480 <-- Thats the number that is the most shocking.

    As far as connections go most of my users are on DSL or Cable, but a surprisingly large percentage still use dialup.
     
    token20, Dec 20, 2005 IP
  7. minstrel

    minstrel Illustrious Member

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    #7
    They're typical perhaps for web design/seo/tech sites but not for the average site. I also wonder how you are collecting these stats - they look more like poll results than actual web stats, in which case there are other questions/problems that you need to consider with these data.

    The results posted above by token20 are more typical for "average" site visitors.

    For example, these are from October 2005:

    See also:

    http://www.internetworldstats.com

    http://www.bandofgonzos.com/phpbb/viewforum.php?f=53
     
    minstrel, Dec 20, 2005 IP