I am doing a site for someone whose site is currently 784 pixels wide. They are saying that because such a large percentage of their viewers view at 1024 x 768 that they would like the site to be wider to accomodate those viewers. What is generally the widest you make a site. Any feedback on this would be appreciated.

I target 1024x768. However, unless absolutely necessary, I always make the site a percentage width to adjust for the 0.5% of people still running computers hooked up 10yrs ago. I never target greater than 1024x768 directly as too many are still at 1024x768.

If you were to do a fixed width, what would be the maximum you would do fixed?

1024px. GIMP, though, reports a "Web banner huge" as 728x90, so that's what a lot of people make their header images. In that event, I'd do the 728 and center it.

I make mine so that they will still look ok for those at 800x600, so my minimum width is 780px.

Originally Posted by LadynRed

...so my minimum width is 780px.

Do you mean maximum?

Out of curiosity, do you have stats on screen widths that leads you to this or is it simply a desire to have maximum compatibility?

I guess we should point out that none of this discussion has addressed cell phone screen widths, but I confess to ignoring that. And, that's a confession as I'm sure that very soon it will not be acceptable to ignore such mini screens.

Well, most of our sites are fixed width, so yes, in that case it's a max. However, in those cases where we have a fluid width, the max is no more than 1000, and the minimum is 780.

We build websites for doctors practices, so we have a larger percentage of older visitors who won't have the 'latest and greatest' technology, and it's also more likely that they'll use the 800x600 because of vision issues. So yes, we try for more compatibility.

Frankly, at this point, I'm not worried about having my site look perfect on a 2-4 inch screen.. not for my target audience !

Most users (according to Google) are now at 1024×768. I design at a maximum width of 960px. The smaller sites look dwarfed on larger screens. I have a 22-inch monitor and they look horrible on it, especially the ones that are left-aligned. You could also consider having a fluid column.

I have my sites no larger then 800px. I use a 1440x900 resolution and don't like my browser maximised, I keep it about the size of the old square monitors (helps me when designing templates too).

20% of users are at 800x600 or less according to this site.