Do people still have their monitors set to 640x480?

Should I design for this?

[HughMungus]

Not an ecomm site and I don't want to do multiple versions.

[photon]

Most statistics I've seen have around 2-5% set at 640x480, around 45-48% each for 800x600 and 1024x768, with higher resolutions making up the difference.

Here's one [dreamink.com] site with statistics; resolution's a little over halfway down the page.

[edited by: photon at 8:23 pm (utc) on Oct. 11, 2004]

[Span]

Resolution Stats for September from thecounter.com

1024x768 43.290.804 (51%)
800x600 27.493.296 (33%)
1280x1024 6.875.842 (8%)
1152x864 2.607.098 (3%)
Unknown 1.610.968 (1%)
640x480 774.570 (0%)
1600x1200 637.958 (0%)

I wouldn't worry too much about 640x480. But keep in mind more and more people are using 1152x864, 1280x1024 and up.

[HughMungus]

Cool. Thanks for the info.

[Longhaired Genius]

People today can access the web from all sorts of tiny devices. If your is an information site that people might want to visit when they are out and about, you might want to keep that in mind.

Heres a quick copy and paste of some user-agents from the logs of one of my sites. I've no idea what my site looks like on them but I'm pretty sure they can extract the information.

Nokia3200
LG-G4015 UP.Browser
SonyEricssonT610
NOKIA-RH-27
SEC-SGHX426 UP.Link
MOT-V300
Nokia6600
Nokia3510i
SonyEricssonT230
MOT-A-0A
MOT-V600
SonyEricssonK700i
Nokia3650
SonyEricssonT630
Nokia7600
MOT-A-2B
Nokia6010
SHARP-TQ-GX10i
SAGEM-myX-7
SEC-SGHX427 UP.Link
Nokia7210
SonyEricssonT616
Nokia6230
Nokia3100
Nokia7250I
SIE-C62
Nokia3100b
MobileExplorer
LG-L1150 UP.Browser
SonyEricssonT310
SAMSUNG-SGH-E700
SEC-spha460 UP.Browser
SonyEricssonP800
Panasonic-GAD87
BlackBerry7510
SonyEricssonT637
MOT-E398
Nokia6800
Nokia3595
NokiaN-Gage
Nokia7250

[victor]

Don't forget that people running 640x480 are likely running their browser full screen.

While those with higher resolutions are likely to have a clutter of smaller windows open at once.

And are more likely to have more window dressing on the browser -- tool bars and the like.

So the available canvas -- the space for you to display your wares -- may be smaller than you think.

That's not a statistic that is easy to come by.

But it's normally easier to click to another site than it is to scroll through a sprawling one.

[Livenomadic]

MY general rule:

Make sure the site can be USABLE in 640x480...

Now, that doesnt mean it has to be pretty, infact the whole site can look incredible broken... but if you are still running that resolution I am 100% sure you are used to viewing broken sites before.

[Span]

About tiny devices: to get an impression of how sites look on a handheld, try the wapalizer:
[gelon.net ]

[krieves]

My mortgage company website stats are real similar to the counter.

1024x768 - 52.72%
800x600 - 32.59%
1280x1024 - 5.88%
mixed other resolutions - 4.30%
1152x864 - 2.41%
1600x1200 - 1.38%
640x480 - .72%

[jsavvy293]

640x480 I dream of the day when I can stop designing for them.

[SkyDog]

The number of users on 640 X 480 is negligible, especially in the US.

[photon]

Check out this resolution specific [themaninblue.com] layout. At large resolutions it displays side-by-side columns. If the resolution drops below a certain threshhold, the columns collapse to stacked divs.

[vkaryl]

It IS a pain to take 640x480 into account. I have a couple of sites I HAVE to do this for (because the main accessors of those sites are older than I am, and way less techie, and on limited/fixed incomes so are using the kids'/grandkids' leftovers as far as machines go. I know this for a fact because I'M the one helping them figure out how to keep 8 year old tech running....*sigh*) Even if the people using 640x480 expect broken sites, I still have my pride....

Unfortunately, the only way I can REALLY see them in 640x480 is to load them up on my antique laptop (my current monitor/display combo will DO 800x600, but isn't particularly happy about it.... 640x480? You've GOT to be kidding - you want ME to display at something like THAT? GET A GRIP WOMAN! Anyway....) It's okay to do it that way, but with only one phone line I can't run both concurrently (yes, I could set up a network, but I just haven't got around to it yet - I've only been retired a few weeks, and even so I'm still working some *sigh* And I'm getting a new laptop for Christmas so I think I'll just wait...)

Side benefit: at least those sites are reasonably "unbroken" in smaller viewports as well.... I REALLY wish people didn't have to try to use sites on stuff like cell phones - it's SO much more esthetically pleasing and fun to design for 1600x1200 (which btw is what I run myself, and I do NOT have a million windows open at the same time, OR a bunch of crap toolbars.... one of us in every crowd, y'know?)

[webmastertexas]

I've optimized my site for higher resolution, but I always make sure the smaller resolution folks can still access it properly (i.e. with everything in screen so they don't have to scroll sideways to see all the page). I know, it's a pain in the buttocks, of course, but you can't just ignore them. They make up about 20% of my visitors, and you don't want to completely turn them off, because I know, from my own experience, that I hate sites that makes me scroll sideways to view all the site.

[victor]

The number of users on 640 X 480 is negligible, especially in the US.

That's not really the most relevant figure. What counts is the most likely minimim canvas size for your market.

If I am selling 100+meg Flash movies, then I can probably ignore small canvas sizes.

If I am selling PDA software, I'd be a generous benefactor to my competitors if my site didn't work well in a PDA-sized canvas.

For most of us, it is very little effort to make a site work well at almost any resolution. Then you are future proofed against any shift in the viewing demographics.

Anyone who has ever been successful in retail knows the correct answer to "will this help me sell?" is not "I don't want to do that because I don't like it"

[MatthewHSE]

one of us in every crowd, y'know?)

Call it two. ;) I'm running 1280x1024 on a 17" monitor, which is the best my video card will support. If I ever get a bigger monitor, I may upgrade my video card as well so I can use a better resolution. I never have multiple windows open at once; don't like it, run everything maximized. And I love browsing the Internet with so much space! (And I still skinny up my FireFox toolbars as much as possible to squeeze out every bit of viewing area . . . )

[Symbios]

I don't design for less than 800 by 600 and haven't done so for some time. I like to make the sites fluid though as many people use higher res monitors nowadays, I don't think a 640 or even 800 wide website would look too great in a high res monitor.

[webmastertexas]

I don't design for less than 800 by 600 and haven't done so for some time. I like to make the sites fluid though as many people use higher res monitors nowadays, I don't think a 640 or even 800 wide website would look too great in a high res monitor.

Right. My site is OPTIMIZED for higher resolution. But I do keep the small resolution folks in mind, and while the site won't look as good to them, it won't require them to scroll sideways to see all of it, and to me that's a good thing.

[createErrorMsg]

I don't think a 640 or even 800 wide website would look too great in a high res monitor

This is really the question at the heart of the question, isn't it? Which is better? To look at a smaller page at a higher resolution (lots of empty space) or to look at a bigger page on a too-small screen (horizontal scrollbars).

My personal take is this: if you're running a higher resolution (say 1024X768), and you don't like the extra space on either side of a site, and it's REALLY bugging you, you can resize your browser down until you feel comfortable and your agoraphobia calms down. However, if you're running 800X600 and a site is designed for 1024X768, there isn't a d*mn thing you can do about those horizontal scrollbars.

Point being that the site doesn't become MORE DIFFICULT to navigate if it's smaller than the screen res, but it becomes noticably harder to navigate when horizontal scrolling is involved.

[webmastertexas]

Point being that the site doesn't become MORE DIFFICULT to navigate if it's smaller than the screen res, but it becomes noticably harder to navigate when horizontal scrolling is involved.

That's my point exactly. I really find some webmaster's dismissal of surfers with small resolution to be somewhat arrogant. *I* was running everything through 800x600 just until a few months ago! I guess if you don't care about your visitors coming back, you wouldn't care all that much about their discomfort having to scroll sideways and backways just to read what's on screen. Personally, my site is geared toward developing a loyal following, so I *do* care about my visitors' comfort. I want them to come back.

[lgn1]

Very few people are using 640x480, and those that do; they know they are running an obsolete monitor, and would expect all web sites to look like crap, at that resolution.

I guess some visually impaired people may be using 640-480 resolution, even on a 15 or 17 in monitor

[webmastertexas]

Very few people are using 640x480

If you *CARE* about repeat readership, you'll go out of your way to not tick off even a small minority. Apparently you and others don't, so there's no use arguing about it. I'm just not in this to make a quick buck, but that's just me. All I know is that, when I had 800x600 or lesser, I NEVER went back to sites that was so full of themselves they didn't care about my surfing experience. 'Nuff said by me on this subject.

[createErrorMsg]

Very few people are using 640x480, and those that do; they know they are running an obsolete monitor, and would expect all web sites to look [bad]

To some degree, this is true, and I usually design a page to fit nicely in 800X600 res with some bg showing through on the sides (700px wide, on average), but it's worth noting that most people running at 640X480 are doing so out of necessity, not choice.

B/C I design in the 800X600 range, I usually have my browser sized to those dimensions when I surf, and I have to say that it bugs me when a site gives a horizontal scrollbar at that res. Then again, most of those sites are 'techie' sites, where it's probably safe to assume your users know about resolution settings and have theirs set as high as their deteriorating eyes can handle. ;)

[lgn1]

If you design for 640x 480, your site can look clunky, and less profesional at the higher resolutions.

If you were a large site, I could see designing specific pages for 640x480 but at less than 0.5% penetration, and you factor how many of that small percentage you are going to offend, the profit from the sales, from these people, would not pay the development costs of 640x480 frindly sites, for most of us.

[vkaryl]

"look clunky and less professional" - maybe. As I said, I WISH one didn't have to design for low res. HOWEVER, and this is a major caveat: it is NOT "less professional" to attempt to deliver your pages to the maximum number of users. It actually doesn't take much tweaking to fix the 800x600 design so that it's not hopeless in 640x480....

Besides, "less professional" to whom? Techies like us? It's the rest of the world (outnumbers us by quite a lot I'd think!) You need to consider your public. Period.

[And lest there be some of you who'd like to point out that my attitude has changed over a few months: yes, it has. That's BECAUSE I have responsibility for these sites which caused me to rethink the whole proposition....]

[lgn1]

And I thought I was a luddite, when I was still worrying about 640 x 480, back in 2002 :)

[Symbios]

Its about compromise and returns, catering for 800 by 600 with fluid sites that don't look carp on higher resolutions I can live with, limiting to 640 wide for most of the sites I build would make them look very childish so I've set the baseline at 800.

I'll be honest and whats important to me is getting the best return from the websites I build, if I could up sales by 25% from targetting the most popular resolutions at the expense of loosing 1% from the 640 gang or even the 800's in years to come I wouldn't give it a second thought if the site design required the extra page width.

I'm sure there are some out there that will find many reasons to disagree but thats my opinion FWIW

[King of Bling]

Here's the trick I employ...

Shoot for the middle and (hopefully) please everyone.
For example:

I 'design' a site to look BEST in the resolution that is most popular - currently 1024 x 768. I set the overall width to a percentage of the screen - usually 75%-85%. This makes it look better on higher resultion monitors. YET, I make sure when printed, the ENTIRE page is readable. So, I set the minimum width of the site approx 650px when fully compressed.

For my audience (US and Interantional), this approach seems to work quite well.

Hope that helps.
KOB

[henry0]

Does that thread forget about user experience?
I mean what is the primary and secondary target
If it calls for less that 1000+ resolution
So let it be
I have done a few works for orgs and most orgs and org users do not stick to tech reality.
And yes I know about helping them running dinosaurs PC :) (Forget about optimizing for cellphone)
Remember this is still in the States not in a developing Country, there is still a user strata that only knows about 800 and 600.

[createErrorMsg]

And don't forget about those who run at 800X600 (or even 640X480) because their eyes can't handle anything higher. If you think the (slightly?) aged and poorly sighted are only a small portion of the internet using public, consider these statistics from the AARP 2003 annual report:

AARP currently has nearly 36 million members.
"In 2011, the first wave of the 76 million Boomer generation will turn 65."

If as few as 10% of them have eye problems (I'm CERTAIN it's more than that), that's still over 10 million people who may need to use a lower resolution in order to see and read your site. And we're not talking about ancient grandmothers sitting in rocking chairs, here. AARP members are notoriously active, involved, etc.

Somthing to consider...

[edited by: createErrorMsg at 1:11 pm (utc) on Oct. 15, 2004]