what screen resolution to build for?

  • misc question here –
    I think most of us are probably fairly young *cough* and have fairly decent eyesight *cough* so we typically use higher resolution screen settings. I know I use 1280 x 1024, personally. Maybe that’s what is causing my eye strain lately. Anyway – just out of curiousity, I lowered my res down to 800 x 600 and MAN my sight is HUGE in the screen.
    What % of people still use that lower res? Any guesses? How does everyone here get around this issue or does anyone even pay attention to it?
    Just curious because I have some older relatives that I mean are OLD and probably view my site at an 800 res.
    Would love to hear thoughts.

Viewing 10 replies - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)

  • I am old ??

    There are too many surfers out there that still use 800×600.
    If you are designing a good thing is to have the developer bar on you firefox browser. It allows you to resize your browser window to 800×600 easily so you can instantaneously see how they will view it.

    Who are these people who set their screen resolution to 800×600?……that’s so mid 90s. ?? 1024×768 should be the minimum crutch. :p

    A quick way to resize your browser window is to type in
    javascript:resizeTo(800,600)
    in the address bar, it will resize the current window. Yes, there are plugins that let you do it with 1 click, but this was the easiest for me without having to install some plugin. The othe benifit to this is that it works in all browsers unlike a plugin. If you need to change the size, just change the 800,600 part to whatever (ex. 640,480)

    ryanduff: A helfpful hint. Make a bookmark of javascript:resizeTo(800,600) and you won’t have to type it anymore.

    Palm Pilots and Pocket PCs may be as low as 240×320. Are you desiging for them as well?

    1. Many people care more about getting work done on their computer than updating their hipness level. If you’re over kiddie age, you may not care about 5-10 years difference.
    2. Many people just can’t afford replacing their material before it gives up the ghost. Young, affluent 20-somethings from rich nations (the I-Pod target group) are a minority now, and the percentages are, thankfully, shrinking.
    3. Many who use 1024×768 may not browse with a window that covers the entire screen. I don’t (mostly to keep an eye on irc).
    4. Personnally, when I come across a site that gives me a scrollbar (or worse, cuts of part of the page) at, say 900px, I must have a very good reason to come back.
    FWIW.

    Thread Starter sdollen

    (@sdollen)

    @anon – well, gee I was actually thinking about making my site pleasing to the eye for the wifi wristwatches that are now on the market.
    @all, thanks for the feedback and comments. Great tip, Beel. I have the webdev plugin for FF, just didn’t realize that was one of the tools up there.
    Thanks again.

    It would be nice not to have to design with 800×600 folks in mind, but their percentage is too great to ignore. It was depressing to learn that they still represent one-third to fifty percent of surfers.

    Basically make sure the design works in 800×600, it doesn’t have to look its best, but at least doesn’t have horizontal scrollbars, and doesn’t break.
    Realistically it should work sub-1024 because most people don’t maximise their browser. I work on a realistic average of 900 wide for many people, but make sure that 800 wide works, and still looks pretty.

Viewing 10 replies - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)
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