Do you design for 1024 x 768?

Screen resolution nowadays

[silverbytes]

Hi do you design for 1024 x 768?
I notice a tendence to make centered websites fixed pixels size.

[kiwibrit]

I design full fluid - and check down to 800x600.

[rocknbil]

More replies to this weekly-asked question [google.com] :-D

[tedster]

I notice a tendence to make centered websites fixed pixels size.

If you are going that route, then you still need to accomodate 800x600 in my opinion. Somewhere between 12% and 15% of users are set to 800x600 and that's a lot of visitors to serve with a side scroll!

[jimbeetle]

that's a lot of visitors to serve with a side scroll!

Yeah, like me ;-)

But I do think that all of us laggards are going to have to take the step up to 1024 whether we like it or not. And it's not really 'Net-driven (yeah, there are other forces in this world), it's much of the other software that demands higher rez.

Turns out I recently discovered that most of today's multimedia software is unusable at 800 x 600, the UI opens larger than the screen.

So I'm going to have to make the move, but it will be kicking and screaming.

<added>But of course my sites will still serve 800 x 600 without a side scroll.</added>

[Robin_reala]

Stretchy with a min and max width all the way.

[choster]

My screen is set to 1400x1050 but I never browse maximized. Usually I will have several windows open at the same time, and the browser is usually sized around 800x1010. I have Firefox set to prevent sites from resizing the window with Javascript (something I absolutely *hate*). It's conceit for a webmaster to think his/her website is the only thing I'm working on.

I've noticed that older people or those who are not technically saavy 1) browse fully maximized a great deal, either because it's hard for them to resize windows in Windows or because they don't know how, or because they do not multi-task, and 2) often browse with a sidebar open with bookmarks or some plugin, because it is easier to click on them or again because they don't know how to turn it off. Even on a 1024x768 display this cuts usable space down to about 800 wide.

[tedster]

Good points choster. One of my pet peeves is websites that look at screen resolution rather than available client width and height, and then get clever with the code, based on their erroneous conclusions about by browser window.

[JAB Creations]

I don't drink but I'm guessing if I did I'd still say static pages don't even look good while drunk.

Design with a dynamic layout with support for 800x600 and greater.

[misteroriginal]

I do drink, and I'd say emotion in art is created by angles that tend to get lost in a fluid design.

So if the site is purely informational, ie.e, no emotion needed, then a fluid design checked at 800x600 makes sense.

One of my monitors is 1600x1200, so I frequently view two sites side by side. If a site needs to be fixed for artistic impact, I prefer 800x600.

I've been playing with Flash that rescales vector graphics to fill whatever size the browser window is.

[tangor]

One of the reasons newer browsers have TABS is to avoid having concurrent browsers loaded. I use tabs quite a bit.

That said, content should be flexible enough to fit in less than full screen views because there is nothing more annoying than scrolling right and left!

[limbo]

Big resolutions and fluid sites don't mix well - One paragraphh of text 50 words long is hard to read.

I am seeing more and more wide screen resolutions in the logs too.

Min/max width Javascript tested to resize from 800 up to 1024 is probably the best way to do it, if you have the time :)

Personally speaking 750px will always be my starting point for page width.

[bwelford]

Fluid designs may produce long lines of text that are irritating to read, so there's another reason for accommodating the 800 x 600 crowd.

[Robin_reala]

Fully fluid sites are difficult to read at high resolutions yes, but that's what max-width is for.

[kiwibrit]

Very few screens will have problems with a well styled, 2 (or more)column, fully fluid display. Now that IE7 is on the horizon, max-width becomes viable without javascript. And as those PC users with really high-resolution screens are likely to be using Vista in the not too-distant future, max-width should soon be available for the majority of users.

[penders]

Hhhmm, enough said already really, but...

The site should certainly degrade well down to 800x600 and be able to get by at even less I think. I certainly don't want to have to view sites maximised all the time and having to enlarge the window (or scroll sideways) to view content is annoying.

Also, it's not just monitors you have to think about these days... handhelds, phones, and other small screened devices.

And certainly fixed-width 1024x768 (as opposed to fluid) designs tend not to print too well, without an alternate stylsheet.