design to 800 x 600?

is it important?

[mrmean]

I recently re-vamped my pages to be viewabale in 800x600 resolution on a user's monitor, thus getting rid of a horizontal scroll bar.

Just curious, how many others do the same? Or do you just design it to a 1024 x 768? Just through my web stats, i can see some people still use 800x600. So I guess it is good idea.

[grahamstewart]

I design my pages so they are fluid - using whatever space they are given. They are happy at 800x600 or 1024x768, even 640x480 or smaller looks okayish.

It's the way forward.

But before I start yet another "fluid vs static" holy war...

Static layout has its advantage though if you want ultimate control of your site layout. So to answer your question.. YES you should definitely cater for 800x600. Look at any major site that uses a static layout (e.g. BBC, The Register, Penny Arcade) and you will see they are designed to be around 760 pixels wide.

[2oddSox]

I recently re-did one of my earlier sites to cater for 800x600 and was pleasantly surprised at the increase in return from the advertising down the right-hand side of the pages. Seems my 8x6 visitors could read the content but were blissfully unaware of my ads.

[mrmean]

ah ok, thanks for the advice. I think i'll keep doing it. It looks fine on 1024x768 and fits perfect on 800x600. I set mine at about 735 width.

[vrtlw]

Things are always getting more difficult, let alone the cell-phones, there are products like this [minipc.vulcan.com] that will be available soon

[ergophobe]

Amazingly, though, that thing has a resolution of 1024x600. So your page will fit, but the user will need a magnifying glass to actually read your text.

Anyway, I think last stats still show about 40% on 800x600 and don't forget that many people, especially on Macs, don't surf with the browser maximized.

Tom

[PSilver]

The resolution the visitors will be using depends a lot on who they are. I ran some Javascript on a website I was updating recently to check the resolution. The site is aimed at lawyers and about 65% were using 800x600, 30% on 1024x768 (mainly using a maximised window, which I do very rarely personally) and a few above and below that.

For a site aimed at a technical audience, I'd expect higher resolutions, but as Tom says, they might not be browsing with the window maximised.

Paul

[grandpa]

Hiya mrmean. I did the same thing recently, revised all my pages for 800x600. The design demands a full screen browser. Now that I'm generally satisifed with the results it's time to consider a fluid design.

For me it's a matter of learning each step along the way. The re-design required my attaining enlightenment of CSS first.

[mrmean]

The re-design required my attaining enlightenment of CSS first.

----
that's what I need to tackle!

[zoobie]

There's nothing worse than having to scroll back and forth to read a page. I've always designed at 8 x 6 to avoid this. However, I'm seeing a disturbing trend toward ignoring this and just designing for 10 x 7. Maybe the designer doesn't know that other resolutions exist other than the one they see on their screen. I think fluid designing would be best with percentages. Since my res is stuck at 8 x 6, I had to write a javascript code to pop open a larger window to see what the heck was happening at higher res's...Worked for me. ;^)

[ken_b]

Here's a hint for what it's worth.

If you are designing with a fixed format include a banner, text, image, something, maybe almost anything that will make the viewer realize there is something off to the side.

By off to the side I mean beyond 640 pixels.

Here's why. The other day I was looking at a website, looking for something specific that I knew should be on the page.

I looked and looked, scrolled up and down, checked other pages on the site to see if I could find it.

Nope.

The pages were designed for 800 x 600 fixed.

I use 800x600 on my browser..... but I almost always have the favorites side bar open at it's default width.

This effectively gives me a 640 wide screen.

This particular site was designed so that with my arrangement it looked so good and natural that I didn't even notice the side scroll bar.

Admittedly this may not be that much of a problem, but it was an eye opener for me.

Remember, there are a lot of folks like me online with vision that doesn't make 1024 and beyond very usefull.

Just provide a visual clue that there is more to be seen over on the right.