I recently had a friend email me and ask me to resize a header for our forum because the 950 px wide image was cut off on both of his 800 x 600 screens. !!??

I told him no, because most people use at least 1024 x 768, and it would be way too small. I know this for sure, because I had originaly designed it at 800, and enlarged it because it "squished" the forums up too much.

So he comes back and says that he designs his sites for 640 x 480 !!??

I replied that the average user is 1024 x 768. Not based on anything I had read, just a general knowledge of computers. All of the new purches I have seen from the last 5 years have come with screens set with 1024 x 768 as their default. I told him anyone that was using less, had an older, smaller, screen or a small laptop and suggested that he use opera or IE 7 which when zooming in and out also resizes the images, and not the text alone.

He replied this morning wanting to know a source of this "demographic". I really don't have one. But any design I have ever worked with, even like template monster and such, is at least 950 in width.

So I thought I'd ask all of you pros what the real stats were on this, or if they are even known. There's no way on earth I would make any design for screen res of 640 x 480!

w3schools have some stats on this. Although most users may have the larger screen size, your friend is right to be concerned about the few that don't. What about them? I know a lot of designers do code for 800 x 600 screens.

My husband did design work for Fox and Universal at E3, he always designs to 800x600.

i can understand 800 x 600, but 640 x 480? That seems a little extreme.

Even though 1024x768 is now the most popular resolution I still design to ensure that people using 800x600 will be able to view the site without any horizontal scrolling.

Some sites may still want to design for lower resolutions given cell phones and pda's, though that will depend on the target market of the given site. For the most part I'm with you that 800x600 can be used as a minimum.

Does your friend have a statistics package that shows details on the screen resolution for visitors to the site? You might be able to convince him that he doesn't need to have a design for 640x480 if no one or very few people to the site are using it.

640 x 480 is ridiculous. Is he also going to design his sites in black and white for people who don't have those newfangled color monitors?


I don't remember the exact numbers but basically a small percentage of the total number of people with internet access are browsing at 800 x 600, but even though it's a small percent of the overall it's still a huge number of people.

It's really weird, because I had no idea he was a designer, and he uses 800 x 600 himself! Perhaps he's just an ameateur, "Hello World" type of guy that does it as a hobby? I don't know, but come on! I'm with you, JeremiahB, get with the times. How can you call yourself a designer and have a grandma res of 800x600. Either he has a reeeeeeeealy small screen, or he's tech illiterate. Both choices scream, "I'm no where near being computer savvy!!!".

The other day I was cleaning some stuff off of my mother-in-law's pc when I had the sudden urge to bump her up to 1152x854 (she has a 17" flat panel that is right in your face with her desk), but I put it put it back.

Anyways, I sent him the link to w3schools, and he replied with, "wow, kewl - thank you."

I think it really depends on who the audience of the site it. People who's eyesight isn't the best prefer 800x600 resolution even if their monitors can handle a higher resolution. When I look at the stats for my site enough people visit with an 800x600 res that I think it's important to make sure they can use the site easily.

Is it a lot of people? No, but why exclude anyone. Most of us who design and develop sites will have the highest resolution, the latest browser, and the fastest processor. Most people won't though and it's those people who are visiting our sites. Not us.

With the 640x480 I agree that you don't need to design for it, but keep in mind that more and more people are surfing the web with phones and other devices that have a low resolution. Depending on the nature of your site it's probably a good idea to design for a lower resolution. For example if my site sold ringtones I'd absolutley make sure that it worked at a low resolution.

I would say design for 800x600 not 1024x768 at this time

People run the smaller resolution for many of reasons, a lot of time because of vision problems and 1024x768 makes the fonts significantly smaller.

If you want to design for 640x480 or 1024x768, consider making fluid layouts that appear fine at the different resolutions so as not to alienate viewers.

The audience of the site he asked to change is www.bibleanswersforums.com, a christian community. The owner asked for something wider than 800, and was pleased with the 950. But most of the time, I'm designing for web hosts. So far, I have always been able to please them with at least a 950 design.

The friend told me he is using a tablet pc.

yeah, it can be dificult dealing with customers who want something specific that goes against web standards and they don't understand why.

Personally I feel it is my responsibility to inform clients as to why they should chose web standards and accessible designs.

For a bible forum, you are going to be dealing with all age ranges and a good amount will be older viewers with vision problems. Many people run 800x600 for the larger text, so I would advice to step down to a smaller width design.

no, not this bible forum. I know about 80% of it's members personaly, and there are only 2 that are in their 60's, and I assure you (my heart swealls with admiration as I think of these two), they have no vision impairments. It's funny how at the mention of a bible site, you think alot of the audience would be old. The owner is 28, and most of the members are in their late 20's and early 30's. I'm 22.

I still think its not the best way to go about it. People are only going to get older, and vision is only going to get worse.

Further, you are designing the forum to only support its current userbase (which you know) but possibly alienating possible new users.

I agree with Ross. There may be people out there who would like to become members, but are put off by having to scroll horizontally. It's true that 1024x768 is the most common resolution now and I know when I design I try to make sites look best at that resolution, but a significant amount of people still use 800x600 and so I also make sure the site will still work for them.

Now if the site is only for those members you know and you know they don't use 800x600 then it's not important to design for it. I'm guessing though that you would like to see the site grow so why exclude people if you don't have to.

Do you have access to a stats package for the site? That would tell you what resolutions visitors to your site are using.

By the way it's a nice looking forum. The look fits very well with the theme of the site.

I have webalizer and awstats, but neither seem to tell me about the resolution, am i just missing it?

We're also devolping another design for users that prefer a brighter look (www.tammyhartdesigns.com/phpBB2) and because of this discussion, I've decided to rework the header so that it can be at least 800px

Most People use 1024 x 768 now - I know this from experience. As technology progress the resolution in monitors improve. So the best would be 1024 x 768 IMHO

Tammy, unfortuantely I think you're right that neither of those stats packages displays the resolution of your visitors. I recently got an invite to use Google Analytics and they do show the resolution info.

I like the colors in the new design. It's more my taste, but I do think the current design works very well for the theme. It looks like the new design is using a liquid layout which should take care of your resolution issues.

johnsongreen you're right that most people use 1024x768 and it's also true that 800x600 resolution is becoming less common. That doesn't mean you should ignore the lower resolution though. Enough people are still surfing at 800x600 that you shouldn't ignore them unless on your particular site you know that no one is visiting at the lower resolution. It's not about designing for the most popular. It's about designing for as many people as you reasonably can.

I just did a quick check for global browsing stats and it showed that 16% of people are still using 800x600. The % isn't going to be the same everywhere, but from what I've seen on my site it seems about right. 16% is large enough that I wouldn't want to ignore that group.

I will try to make my sites look their best at 1024x768 since it is by far the most common resolution at the moment, but I still want to make sure that people with lower resolutions can view my sites and find them usable.

I agree with vangogh completely.

It is not just about the quality of monitors, as I said many people choose to browse at a lower resolution to increase the size of everything. Even if you can increase the font sizes, all the images/flash is still smaller and people who are 40+ end up squinting a lot of the time.

A lot of companies I work for are middle aged business owners, and they all complain about the size of text on some websites. Some of them take it the step further and drop down a resolution.

16% sounds small, but that is 4 out of every 25 people who you are making your site inaccessible too.

Ross, I don't think either of us has mentioned all the people who surf without having their browsers maximized. My laptop has a resolution of 1920x1200, but my browser is usally open to something like 1600x1200. There will be people who have 1024x768, but still only have their browser open to something closer to 800x600.

Absolutely, good point!

Also some people do navigate with sidebars (IE has a vertical bar for bookmarks, etc)

I think ultimately if you can make a site that looks just as good in a 800x600 compliant design, as someone else can in 1024x768 why not go for it?