Whats the most common resolution (screen size) to visit you?

[carbonize]

Just to put an end to an ongoing debate, or maybe fuel it even more. Look at your stats and say which screen size is the most used by your visitors.

Please post the stats if you can.



1600 x 1280 ---- 572 0.44 %
1280 x 1024 --- 4471 3.47 %
1152 x 864 ---- 3246 2.52 %
1024 x 768 --- 48558 37.72 %
800 x 600 ---- 74037 57.51 %
640 x 480 ----- 2807 2.18 %
Other Resolution 2922 2.27 %

[nick]

These are the percentages of each screen resolution for WebproWorld.com

1. 1024x768-----50.45%
2. 800x600------27.96%
3. 1280x1024----9.60%
4. 1152x864-----4.49%
5. 1600x1200----2.14%
6. 1280x960-----1.25%
7. 1400x1050----1.05%
8. 640x480------0.71%
9. 1152x870-----0.40%
10. 1280x768-----0.19%

[ojo4max]

This is what I have so far this year:

1024 x 768 120973 44.78%
800 x 600 102251 37.85%
1280 x 1024 16230 6%
1152 x 864 6934 2.56%
640 x 480 4075 1.5%
1400 x 1050 4040 1.49%
1600 x 1200 3460 1.28%
1280 x 960 914 0.33%
1152 x 870 715 0.26%
1152 x 768 709 0.26%
832 x 624 519 0.19%
1280 x 854 475 0.17%
1600 x 1024 389 0.14%
1440 x 900 362 0.13%
2048 x 768 257 0.09%
1280 x 768 236 0.08%
560 x 420 200 0.07%
960 x 720 168 0.06%
2560 x 1024 163 0.06%
2800 x 1050 151 0.05%
1920 x 1200 147 0.05%
720 x 480 118 0.04%
800 x 553 108 0.03%

[namita]

so what resolution should we design the site in?
Namita

[ojo4max]

I design all my pages to fit an 800x600 resolution, which comes out to 755 pixels for some reasons. That way nobody has to scroll left to right.

[debttofreedom]

Make it 100%. You will be on the safer side.

Althaf
News Central Inc.

[yves1]

BTW how do you get your user's resolution?
I have a web site and the ISP provide me with some stats but resolution is not part of it?
Is there a way to get that info by myself?
thanks
Yves
http://www.ybdigitals.com

[ojo4max]

Making it 100% could change the layout of your page if you are text wrapping. A set value will lock the page layout.

[debttofreedom]

I have had no problem so far.

Althaf Ahmed
News Central Inc.

[carbonize]

yves1 unless I'm mistaken you need to use a stats program that uses javascript as that is the only way to get the resolution.

[namita]

BTW how do you get your user's resolution?

Yves1 you can go to a1javascript.com and there you can find scripts to find out user resolutions.


Make it 100%. You will be on the safer side.

debttofreedomEven if we do 100% we get scroll bar from left to right which is very bad...and hides a part of site.

Namita

[doubleplus]

Really, all statistics like these are irrelevant. If you sell denture products, you will most likely have older clients who use 640x480 resolution most often. If you sell gaming equipment, you're looking at much higher resolutions. So check your market to determine where your site should be.

[mark_e_i_1964]

Not a high-traffic site(yet), but:

Resolution - % Total

1600 x 1280 - 0.00 %
1280 x 1024 - 6.56 %
1152 x 864 - 0.00 %
1024 x 768 - 55.74 %
800 x 600 - 37.30 %
640 x 480 - 0.00 %
Other - 0.41 %

(For hhministries.us}

[ojo4max]

Doubleplus is correct. Screen resolutions, OS and browsers vary greatly with your industry. So his advice is the right one. Design your pages for your market.

[aventvoy]

Hi there,
As it has been said earlier, building a web focusing on resolution will depend on who is visiting which web site.
For instance, look at the stats for WebProWorld: most of us are somehow involved in web design , aren't we... Not a surprise then to notice that most visitors are using 1024 x 768.
I would also say the same for modem/conection speed. The more "tecnical" your audience, the fastest the connection will be. And the more northern american the audience is, the more likely it will be cable or adsl (europeans are still a little behind regarding these two connections)
So screen resolution and download speed have to be thought in term of audience...Target, target...
How do you say in english? "that's my two cents input"?
:-)
Bye,
Alain
http://www.aventurevoyages.com

[carbonize]

Yup if you're site is aimed at a very narrow band of people then you can narrow down the resolution. But what if you're a big site like Ebay or Yahoo? or you are a design company? Then you are trying to attract everyone. So it's good to know what the most popular screen resolution is so you can aim your site at that while still making it look good in the other resolutions.

By the way aventvoy Americans non parlevouz le Anglais anyway :-) (I'm just learning French so expect errors. lol)

[dugfresh33]

Always remember, too, that users on AOL have even less space than what their screen res will permit. A site designed to accomodate 800 x 600 users will send AOL users scrolling...and a site designed to expand to 800 x 600 with no scrollbars, menubars, etc. on loading, will absolutely lose your AOL audience.
I'm not sure if MSN is the same, i.e., fills up your screen with all sorts of stuff you don't really need to surf the web...I can't stand either of them.

Like others have said, design for your target market. If you really can't pin down your target market, design for the "lowest common denominator."

[doubleplus]

It is true that if you have a target market of effectively everyone, you must deal with the wider statistics. In that case, I'd pay attention to what the big boys are doing - namely eBay, Yahoo, MSN. You'll see that they design for 800x600 right now, although for the most part a 640x480 user will see everything he or she needs within the base area of each page without scrolling.

Another option was referred to earlier - using the 100% width table that autoexpands and contracts to the screen's resolution, and even to the size of the browser window. It's a little tricky to make things work out within each resolution, and it mostly only works well with mostly text pages, but it's worth trying.

[bradmc]

Make it 100%. You will be on the safer side.

Unless your target market is extremely well-defined, then I would tend to agree with debttofreedom in regard to making it 100%, and making the content use the width as dynamicially as possible. Well, not necessarily 100%, but some percentage.

Somebody mentioned that, even while using a 100% width, parts of the site were still hidden. That means you have images, or something, holding the width open wider than the browser's width. Even when this has to be the case, it's usually possible to make the text dynamically wrap at 100%, even though the images don't.

Btw, even though I usually use 1024x768 or 1600x1200, depending on which computer I'm on, I rarely have the browser maximized. One of the beauties of having a GUI OS is that you can view multiple windows, or parts of multiple windows, concurrently. I cringe every time I'm forced to maximize because somebody saw fit to design precisely for 1024x768.

I'll admit, I have plenty of personal low-traffic sites where I use a locked-down width, but I'd never build something shakey like that for a customer unless there was an awfully good reason.

Brad

[Paul Pomerleau]

What do you use to design for 800X600 display?


[quote="doubleplus"]It is true that if you have a target market of effectively everyone, you must deal with the wider statistics. In that case, I'd pay attention to what the big boys are doing - namely eBay, Yahoo, MSN. You'll see that they design for 800x600 right now, although for the most part a 640x480 user will see everything he or she needs within the base area of each page without scrolling.

[redcircle]

Make it 100%. You will be on the safer side.

Unless your target market is extremely well-defined, then I would tend to agree with debttofreedom in regard to making it 100%, and making the content use the width as dynamicially as possible. Well, not necessarily 100%, but some percentage.




easy solution... 90%

[redcircle]

[quote="Paul Pomerleau"]What do you use to design for 800X600 display?

make a width no wider than 755 or do percentages of screen in a container div or table

[cooper]

Hi all,
I thought I would throw in my 2¢ here.
The best two resources I have found (aside from your own users stats) are as follows:
- Web stats from The Counter (http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2003/August/index.php) - You can easily replace the month in the URL with the current month to get more recent results. I have generally found their stats to be on par with my findings across a multitude of web sites I manage.

- Webmonkey's Browser Size (http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/99/41/index3a.html) tutorial is also quite helpful.

Have fun!

[pcwebdesign]

G'day all

My stats for my home page concerning resolutions are:

Screen Resolutions Unique Visitors

1024x768 - 813 - 57.33%
800x600 - 407 - 28.70%
1280x1024 - 107 - 7.54%
1152x864 - 61 - 4.30%
1600x1200 - 15 - 1.05%
640x480 - 8 - 0.56%
Other - 7 - 0.49%

[tertius]

yves1 unless I'm mistaken you need to use a stats program that uses javascript as that is the only way to get the resolution.

Actually, a Javascript stats program is not the only way to get this information.

The information is contained in most current-generation HTTP headers (along with other interesting information about the user):
HTTP_USER_AGENT (browser and version info)
HTTP_UA_OS (user OS info)
HTTP_UA_CPU (user processor speed)
HTTP_UA_COLOR (user graphics color depth)
HTTP_UA_PIXELS (user screen resolution)

(Note: some user agents are configured to ignore or hide this kind of information; but for the most part when these details are made available they are found in the HTTP header....)

All it takes is the server to be configured to capture this information to a log file. The info then can be seen using any number of tools (from a text editor up to expensive log analysis tools). Alternately, a webste page can be designed with a script can request the HTTP header particulars and log them to a file or database, or even display them.

I have used an .ASP page (with server-side VBScript) to capture such information from a site's visitors so I can inform the site owner when the users' capabilities allow for more technically oriented site functions--and thus determine when a site update/redesign won't adversely impact the users!

FWIW!
-Tertius

[Markll]

Make the resolution issue moot. Design in Flash and publish for 100% and no margins. Eliminate the scroll bars and you gain almost 2 square inches of screen space and a clean edge to edge presentation.

Scroll bars are one of my biggest pet peeves. I think one of the biggest mistakes made by too many web designers. The start off with great looking graphic and menu system only to have their presentation compromised by the need to scroll down a page.

http://computerlearninganddesign.com
http://localshoppernetwork.com

[rympit]

pretty cool!!! i should not bother anymore of the 800 people
Unknown (2%)
640x480 (0%)
800x600 (17%)
1024x768 (45%)
1152x864 (12%)
1280x1024 (18%)
1600x1200 (3%)

[Sualdam]

Make the resolution issue moot. Design in Flash and publish for 100% and no margins
I understand what you are saying - but you need to be a bit careful publishing at 100% in Flash because of pixellation and distortion.

On the other hand, if you are prepared to ignore browsers that can't handle it, iframes in html are a good way of avoiding scrolling down the page whilst still catering for a lot of text/content.

I agree with you. I find nothing worse than scrolling a badly designed site so the navigation also scrolls off, and I hate normal frames at the best of times :)

[Markll]

Design your site for a higher screen resolution. This will minimize pixellation.

As for browser compatability. An HTML wrapper for the SWF file should always be used and contain Flash detect code with an alternate GIF linked to Macromedia's Flash installation. Add meta content to the HTML wrapper and some hidden text and you've also solved the search engine recognition problem.

[Narasinha]

My stats program on my personal site, which has mostly genealogical information, logs the screen dimensions and the bit depth. Here's what I have so far for September 2003:



Screen Size Hits Percentage
1) 800 x 600 895 33.62%
2) unknown 868 32.61%
3) 1024 x 768 709 26.63%
4) 1280 x 1024 50 1.88%
5) 1152 x 864 45 1.69%
6) 640 x 480 31 1.16%
7) 1400 x 1050 21 0.79%
8) 1600 x 1200 9 0.34%
9) 1152 x 870 5 0.19%
10) 1920 x 1200 5 0.19%
11) 560 x 420 5 0.19%
12) 1280 x 960 5 0.19%
13) 832 x 624 3 0.11%
14) 1920 x 1440 3 0.11%
15) 1280 x 768 2 0.08%
16) 2560 x 1024 1 0.04%
17) 1280 x 800 1 0.04%
18) 1536 x 960 1 0.04%
19) 960 x 720 1 0.04%
20) 792 x 536 1 0.04%
21) 1440 x 900 1 0.04%

Color Bit Depth Hits Percentage
1) 32 bits 1049 39.41%
2) unknown 868 32.61%
3) 16 bits 559 21.00%
4) 24 bits 135 5.07%
5) 8 bits 44 1.65%
6) 1 bits 7 0.26%


Not that this reflects any large group of people browsing, but I never thought I'd see so many different screen settings. I think the 560 x 420 is WebTV.

[Peter]

Another factor to remember is TFT screens have an optimum resolution. 15" TFT normally go at 1024 x 768. 17 and 18" normally at 1280 x 1024.

With the proliferation of TFT and the drop in prices these resolutions will become more popular.

[carbonize]

Make the resolution issue moot. Design in Flash and publish for 100% and no margins.
Yes then you only discourage dial up users who don't want to wait for a large flash file to download. Not to mention people who use text only browsers not being able to view your site.

[matauri]

1024x768 - 57%
800x600 - 20%
1600x1200 - 10%
1152x864 - 8%
1280x1024 - 3%

Agreed, you also design to target audience. Like you dont have a small font on a site that would be used more by the elderly.

However, if you stay away from fixed linear attributes & design to 100% of the screen size, you can pretty well overcome most problems.

Also, for the norm, people will eventually upgrade, not downgrade hardware.

[DylanW]

Other - 1.4%
560x420 - 0.5%
640x480 - 1.1%
800x600 - 44.7%
832x624 - 0.0%
1024x768 - 43.7%
1152x864 - 2.5%
1280x1024 - 4.8%
1400x1050 - 0.8%
1600x1200 - 0.5%

[plenderj]

Stats as reported by our http://counter-intelligence.ie service for the main counter-intelligence.ie webpage (last 1000 hits) :

1024x768 739 73.9%
800x600 174 17.4%
1280x1024 54 5.4%
1600x1200 13 1.3%
1152x864 11 1.1%
1400x1050 3 0.3%
1280x960 2 0.2%
2048x768 1 0.1%
1280x800 1 0.1%
1152x900 1 0.1%
800x480 1 0.1%

[4silverstrea]

Someone also pointed out in another forum that when you use the larger screen,
people with phones with screens and Blackberries can’t read them as well because there is too much scrolling..