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Junior Member
 
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 10/31/2008 3:21:55 PM
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| In a recent post, I noticed someone mentioned that only 10% of users have an 800x600 screen resolution. As I design a new site, I wondered what's the most common screen size in use today. Anybody have any statistics on that? BTW, I want to thank everyone who's posted questions and solutions on this forum. I have had so many of my problems solved just by reading these boards. What a fabulous resource. And, Dustin, I never could have started my web site without your videos. They are the best. Guitarmom
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Forum Newbie
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Last Login: 11/13/2007 10:42:08 AM
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| I am not sure exactly what the stats are - but one thing I go to judge my designs on are what your PC manufacturers are most commonly selling. I would guess that 90-95% of the screens that Dell,HP, and Gateway sell with their computers are in the 17-20" LCD range. The typical native resolutions for 17, 19, and 20" screens start at 1280x1024 and range upwards of 1680x1050 on your widescreen panels. I typically go for 1280x1024 pages myself, but content amount may dictate me back down to 1024x768. I agree we are past 800x600 pages - most everyone has a screen resolution higher than that. I personally go no lower than 1024x768 and maybe in an extreme case would design a page at 1600x1200, but most of them will probably work good in the 1280x1024 range. I'm certainly no expert on design, so, someone here who has done a few more pages may want to chime in be it I am way off the mark.
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Supreme Being
Group: Administrators
Last Login: 10/24/2008 2:27:36 PM
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Well, I'm still one of the increasingly small number of people that will often design for 800*600, in the right situation. It is safe to say the standard has moved to 1024*768 though. For me its always a matter of numbers and knowing your users. For instance, LearnExpression was designed for 800*600 initially, but now that the site has been up for some time, currently only 1.4% of the visitors are using resolutions smaller than 1024*768, so the next version is designed with that spec, as over 30% of the visitors to this site use that spec. (And for the record the percentage of 800*600 users was higher earlier, but it has declined rapidly. That data may then have been impacted to much by a small sample size.)
However, that said, current data says about 14% of users are still using 800*600, so knowing your audience is the key. If 10% of your users are on 800*600 and you get say, 500 visitors a day, that's still 50 potential customers that you are quite possibly alienating every day.
So the best thing is to find the data on an individual site basis. w3schools is also a good source for general data;
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp
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My wife has given birth to our twins, so I'm still going to be spotty around here. It never seems to correct itself does it? I'm sorry, I'm trying.
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Junior Member
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 10/31/2008 3:21:55 PM
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| Thanks for the input! My basic idea was to use a div with a 200px width for the menu on the left, then a div for the main content that's 824px on the right. Then the "typical" user with a 1024px-width screen will see the entire site, but an 800px-width user will only have to scroll when he wants to use the menu. I'm also using your video suggestions, Dustin, to make it all float in the middle of the screen for those users with a wider resolution. You've confirmed for me that this is a reasonable design decision. Many thanks! Guitarmom
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Supreme Being
Group: Administrators
Last Login: 10/24/2008 2:27:36 PM
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You should keep in mind that the browser itself eats up some of that size too. The scroll bar is the thing you have to worry about the most width wise really, which isn't much at all, but the height and were your fold line is, will be highly random depending on how many plugins are taking up space in the browser chrome and if you're user is using the browser full screen or not.
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My wife has given birth to our twins, so I'm still going to be spotty around here. It never seems to correct itself does it? I'm sorry, I'm trying.
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Junior Member
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 10/31/2008 3:21:55 PM
Posts: 16,
Visits: 41
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| Wow. That explains a lot. It's tough to be a newbie.
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