Just wanted your professional opinions regarding which screen size/res to design to.
I know this will probalby cause a bit of a heated debate, but ofr my next project i have to as kthe question
Is it time we moved on to the bigger page desing size?
Your opinions appreciated.

Kind Regards
Andy

I think it is time to move to 1024x768, if you're making a fixed size layout. I know nobody that's still using 800x600.

Making a "stretchable" layout is better however, in my opinion.

800*600 is still web standard...but after few yrz it can be extint

Do a search, this topic has been beat to death on this (and other) forums before.

Most people I know use 1024x768, a few still uses 800 X 600, but it's rare. And nowadays, a lot of people have full desktops, and 800 X 600 isn't making it any better. Plus the screen looks better at 1024 X 768. I'd go for 1024 x 768.

I know so many people still using 800 x 600 and so I still believe that you should be designing for this res if a fixed layout is what you're going for.

Using an 800 x 600 screen and coming across a website that has been designed for a bigger screen is quite frustrating. Go 800 x 600.

However, if you're website is aimed at a design audience there will surely be less people on a smaller res. Right? Hmm.

Research your audience, I guess.

*shrug*

1440 x 900. Why? That's my resolution. Build for ME, dammit.

Seriously, the best answer to your question won't come from these forums. Besides being beaten to death as LNR suggested, every site is different and will have a different user base. The tech-savvy sites tend to work best on 1024x768, whereas sites for the non-tech types might lend themselves more to 800x600.

It depends on your userbase. If they're going to be elderly users I would recommend 800x600. But most likely, you'll be safe with 1024x768. If I remember right, only 5% of users still use a computer with a 800x600 resolution.

We have talked about this many times before. You can probably find a lot of the debate with a little searching.

It really depends though on your audience. 1024x768 is now the most common resolution from all the stats I see including my own. But still get anywhere from 5% to 10% of people with 800x600 resolution and I'm not about to ignore them or make a site that they will have trouble viewing.

Another consideration is that more and more people are using PDA's to view the web. I know I do on my phone sometimes. Depending on your site you may or may not care about people using mobile devices, but you may also want to start thinking about screen resolutions much smaller than 800x600 again. If you have a site selling ringtones for instance I would think it would be a good idea to make sure that site displays well on a phone.

Ultimately it depends on your audience. My goal now is to make my site look it's best at 1024x768 since that's the most common, but I still want to make sure it looks good or at least is uable for a variety of resolutions.

And you can always create a site that is liquid or semi-liquid so it works well in many resolutions.

Exactly vangogh. I'm working on getting my BA in Interactive Media Design and a new component they've added in the last year is designing for small-screen displays. Most sites don't need this support but if you plan on "making it big" you better consider it. Firefox has extensions to simulate a small screen and it's a native option in Opera, but IMO the best way to test is with a real handheld.

ANYWAYS..

AndyJH, do you have a reference site or is this just a general question? Depending on the content you could just use a scalable design. Although I'm a big pusher on moving over to 1024x768, all of my sites with a fixed width have a wrapper set at 740-760px. 5% of 100 users is only 5 people but 5% of 5000 users is 250 people...

It does depend on your demographic, but generally I say keep it simple... go for 1024x768.

If your building a depends under garment website I would prolly do the 800x600.

1024*768 currently