Width of website

What is a good range to keep the width of a website in?

Width with no scrolling of course.

 

Ideally take a look at your own site statistics and figure out what your users have for a screen resolution. Different site demographics will have different results.

Most of my sites still show about 9% of users at 800x600. With that in mind, just because someone has a screen resolution of 1024x768 doesn't mean they have their browser set that wide.

Therefore I try to keep sites working within a 800 pixel width.

 

I'm still designing website for 800x600 pixels. Here are some of my stats:

1) 1024 X 768-----53.99%
2) 800 X 600------25.53%
3) 1280 X 1024----11.25%
4) 1152 X 864------2.87%

Still about 25% of the visitors use 800x600 screen resolution, reson enough for me to build my pages in this resolution.

 

covered many times already in this forum - but if you look at the big players (msn, yahoo, google etc) it seems it's either it's a liquid design (stretches to fill your screen) or 760 pixels wide

 

Thanks everybody.

Yeah I just did a search and found several good threads on this topic.

 

I always just make them to fit the screen. However, creating a website for 1024x768 is completely understandable, as most users are in that resolution, and the ones that are not, are now getting use to scrolling.

 

No, we're not. If I hit your site and I have to side-scroll, you've just lost a potential customer. I've already hit the back button and I'm on to the next site in Google.

 

LOL, Well I did say most. there will always be an acception to the rule.

 

I agree with minstrel. I think it will be sometime before the rule is 1024x768 and even then if you want visitors from all walks of life, it will still make sense to cater to 800x600.

I am new here and I am the first to admit I am not a professional designer. I am self taught and have been too lazy to learn ASP and CSS. My primary objectives are to try for working links, fast loading pages and no horizontal scroll (I think I hate these more than frames). Plus, I make too many mistakes to worry about validating code.

Although I think tables will become obsolete eventually, one way to control the width in the meantime is to enclose content in a table set to 100% width. Centered, this will display in a similar fashion on different resolutions. You will of course be creating more blank space in a higher resolution, but personally, I think that is better than over crowding.

 

I'm still designing for 800x600

 

780x800 is ideal size.

 

One really has to wonder how many 800x600 users are in that resolution simply because they're not aware there's any other way to be.

 

Is the reason they are there relevant? they are at that resolution, so thats pretty much all that matters. Till it changes.

 

To add to what lorien1973 said, I'd also say not many - most new computers probably do not come set up that way but many people, baby boomers and up, set them that way for readability.

Teens, gamers, and web designers are probably more likely to use higher resolutions. If that's your intended audience, do what you like. But if you are designing a commercial site selling products or services to a more general market, or if you're hoping to market to people who have finished school and actually have some money to spend, you might not want to piss of all those who still are at 800 x 600.

 

755px width and any length is my choice with fixed designs

 

Similar here: 760 - 780 px.

 

I agree, eventhough I dont use it, I prefer to know that my site shows up perfectly in all browsers, cause I personaly hate the horizontal scroll

I would suggest 780px which is the exact amount or a fit to screen width

 

I try to design either "stretch" method to streth to whatever with the users browser is , or right around 740-780 px. Again just because screen res. is at 800x600 doesn't mean the full 800 width is being used on the browser window.

When I make a site 740-780 px I also try to make it "center" on the page .. so users like myself with higher res. get it centered on the page with a nice BG.

Personally I can't stand to use a computer at 800x600 screen res. but I know my parents still prefer it!

 

On most browsers - 760 to be safe

 

As 'almost but not really built for adsense' is the main topic of this forum, who do you think your 'clickers' are? People that have the best of the best technolgy (1280+ screens) or the ones with older configurations ( 800 x 600 screens and slow computers ) ? (don't answer)

So my suggestion :
* If you offer quality stuff, services or products, use 1024x768 as a minumun requirement,
* If you depend on clicks on your adsense boxes (or YPN or whatever), fall back to 800x600, and even check your site with an old modem to see if it loads fast enough.