Web Design Resolution

[xnylived]

More and more every day I stumble across sites that are re-designed and optimized for 1024 x 768 resolution. I pose this question to the design community here, when is it time to lay 800 x 600 to rest?

With better monitor resolution and cheaper hardware in the community SVGA is going the way of the dinosaur, is it time to give it a rest in favor of XGA optimized sites? Do we risk alienating the minority who either can't run or don't prefer to run higher resolutions. Please anyone and everyone sound off on their thoughts, I am currently pondering re-designing a site with 10,000 hits per day and I am debating moving into XGA territory.

[andrewharrington]

I actually like smaller sites, like an 800 x 600, when I open them on a larger display. It's a nice, open, airy site. Compact and easy to navigate. Plus, the dinosaur folks can still view it normally. I think it's always okay to design smaller than screen size, and at the very least, it's always better to look at a small site than a large one.

[paynomind]

I have two view points.

One, agreeing with Tempest. I have a 1400 wide screen, but i prefer 800x600 designed sites, so i can have them up and still see my desktop, or background processes. I hardly ever full screen anything.

Two, last Gardner study I read in November showed that 800x600 was still over 50% of web users. Can't ignore that. Thats akin to saying, "we only desing for firefox" (Which I actually saw the other day. The page redirected to a 'you should DL firefox' page. Betetr browser or not, thats a crazy business decision)

[bhambruiser]

wow yeah - that is always the joke...but man, for a company to actually do it- that takes some major coconuts.

I personally think it will be a while before 800x600 is gone per se...I mean think of all the people who still are running IE 5....ouch- that tells you they aren't exactly on the cutting edge of technology- therefore they might have a teeny tiny monitor as well- assumptions sure, but it is a good idea to design with that in mind- example was my last site I did- It broke when i shrunk the resolution....I have since fixed it, but it kind of reminded me that yes - indeed I should respect the 800x600 generation.

[ABCJr]

After some pretty decent direction by some members on this board, I started trying to create sites using the XHTML and CSS standard. In this process, I switched to mostly percentages instead of set pixel requirements.

However, any site I've designed for clients, I've stressed the importance of designing for 800X600 viewers. I share the opinion of everyone that the designs seem to look nicer on these views, regardless of desktop resolution. Even for my older, non-compliant sites (including my personal), I've universally designed for that resolution.

My suggestion is to create a site using creative graphic design that allows for 70% of the screen so that the site is dynamic based on the person's chosen browser. For others that are accessing sites via Macs, Linux and PDA's, they'll thank you.

When you're talking about a site that gets the kind of hits your mentioning, customer experience becomes the sole focus. W3C Compliance is huge, as is evidenced by a recent post on here about a lawsuit against Target for the blind. I'd suggest a book that a friend recommended called, Don't Make Me Think. It talks about creating a customer experience that minimizes the need to think, only to react. This creates a better feel for the customer which, in the end, should net you more $, hits or whatever your chosen goal.

[Mac the Knife]

I'm surprised anyone views in 800x600 anymore frankly. 1024x768 is, at least to me, crisper, cleaner, and allows you to view more information at a glance. If my windows/monitor set-up would allow and my wife wouldn't cut my nuts off, I'd go to the next step beyond 1024x768 (forget what it is) - the more pixels I can cram on my screen - the better.

[ABCJr]

The Mad Mac, I completely agree with you. Unfortunately for designers, not everyone agrees. People have different setups for different reasons. I've switched some people I've worked with from 800X600 to 1024X768 and they thought that the new resolution was "too small." Others are simply unaware that changes can even be made to their resolution.

I design a site with a max width of 760px if I'm doing a static-width site. This accomodates scroll bars and the like.

[phocused]

The biggest hang up with screen resolution is side scrolling. I don't know anybody who likes to scroll a couple hundred pixels to the left to see the whole page. Conversley a site designed to scroll vertically is okay. Go figure.

For what it's worth Browser News reports that 76% of page accesses are using 1024x768 and 21% using 800 x 600. Still a significant number to consider when designing a site. (article here)

If you're generating 10,000 hits per day and apply these stats you'd have to consider over 2000 users are viewing at 800x600.

But stats can lie. Just food for thought

[Kit]

Personally; I like to design fluid layouts which take advantage of any resolution, but hey, call me new-agey.

Text is a whole lot more readable if it's a narrow column though.

Basically, if you can fit it all into 800x600, you really should; but be willing to make it expand gracefully to silly Windows users and their needlessly maximised 1600x1200 pixel windows

[CJR]

I've been bouncing back and forth between using percentage-based widths that expand based on the browser window size and fixed width based in ems so it only expands if the user has bumped up their font sizes.

You can make an argument against most of the options. Percentage-based means that people with uber-high resolutions will be forced to read longer lines of text. Fixed-width means that you have to design for a specific resolution. Using px for the width means that people who bump up their font sizes can break the design.

[Puck]

I mean think of all the people who still are running IE 5....ouch- that tells you they aren't exactly on the cutting edge of technology-

Get people to stop using AOL as their default browser and then you've got something.