Days of 800x600 Ending?

Anyone Designing Sites for Higher Resolutions?

[jimh009]

I was looking over my stats tonight and realized that only about 15% of my visitors are hitting my site with a resolution of 800x600 or less...a number that just continues to go down and down and down by the quarter.

I've noticed that popular sites like Yahoo/YouTube/New York Times and many others are all having resolution sizes greater than 800 pixels in width.

As such, if popular sites like these can broaden their minimum resolution size width wise, and with fewer users going the 800x600 route by the month, I've begun to wonder why I'm still designing sites for this resolution.

I'm giving thought to kicking up the minimum resolution size I use to around 900 pixels wide.

Anyways, was wondering what people think of abandoning the 800x600 resolution? And if you have already done so...what have been your results?

Oh, the site this will be on is a photoblog/blog/travel guide essentially...not a e-commerce site.

Thanks

Jim

[cmarshall]

True. In fact, it's generally true whenever you're conveying information. And I think people generally understand that.

I know someone [edwardtufte.com] who would disagree with that.

Edward Tufte is absolutely famous for developing and documenting ways of quantifying and displaying information.

[Dabrowski]

Edward Tufte

Who? Evidently not that famous.

[Dabrowski]

I have got a demo site ready for testing and scrutinization based on one of my earlier posts, page 2 I think, where I describe a site based around font size, and setting font size by resolution?

I'd like some feedback on this, and to see how it scales to various resolutions, anyone would like to give it a try send me a sticky. I really would appreciate the feedback.

[cmarshall]

Edward Tufte

Who? Evidently not that famous.

Wow. I thought everyone in Web Design knew him.

He's a Yale professor emeritus who has made a name for himself describing (and designing) interfaces for presenting complex data in an understandable format.

He's written a number of books on the subject. They are very eye-opening.

He should be a household name to anyone designing interfaces for presenting data.

His work is best used in conjunction with the work of people like Don Norman [jnd.org] and Bruce Tognazinni [asktog.com] (I won't mention the Evil Other One [useit.com] in that trifecta [nngroup.com]).

I won't apologize for going off topic (something I always do), as the work of these people is very, very much involved in discussions exactly like this one.

[henry0]

hmm, I am a few clicks away; I will check if he is reachable.

[coburn]

We've been on 960 for our B2B site for 3 years now. Reason? We don't care much for 800x600 res visitors. Perhaps we're being arrogant in believing that 800x600 visitors tend to be the technologically poor - either personally or (more than likely) their companies. Our prices are not the lowest in the market, and our site brand needs to reflect this fact.

If yours is a B2C site or adsense site - then sure, I'd still cater for 800x600.

The ultimate marketing choice - you can't be all things to all people. So focus your lens and aim at your target market.

[Powdork]

hmmm....
Interesting that asktog and the neilsen norman group both use 100% width over most of their sites.

[cmarshall]

hmmm....
Interesting that asktog and the neilsen norman group both use 100% width over most of their sites.

Yup. But I'd caution against using them as a model. I think that the universal consensus is that they are amongst the ugliest sites on the Internet.

Quite usable, though.

[Dabrowski]

cmarshall, I'd also go against trying to develop for 1024 with a sidebar. In IE this brings the clientwidth down to just 750! Far too cramped to code for. 250px is just too much to lose!

[cmarshall]

I agree. If someone has that small a screen, why would they be using an open sidebar? I just assume that they are not.

[Dabrowski]

At 1280 I guess they may, to be honest I probably would too, but that still gives the same client resolution as in 1024 without.

[ken_b]

Sidebars...

I surf with my FF or IE sidebar open ALL the time. Frankly it annoys me when I have to close the sidebar, or worse yet, maximize the browser window, to view a site better.

While my resolution is usually at 1,280 or 1,600, my browser window is at about 800.

If a site in my topic is built for a fixed size over 1,024 there's almost no chance I'd link to it.

[Dabrowski]

So your browser width is 800, with a sidebar, leaving a client width of about 550px?

I'd say you have the biggest collection of links to low resolution websites. You should sell it on eBay.

[amznVibe]

Million monthly international (english-speaking) visitor site:

1024x768 50.8 %
1280x1024 14.6 %
1280x800 11.5 %
800x600 7.4 %
1440x900 3.6 %
Others 11.8 %

(just for fun)

Internet Explorer 64 %
Firefox 28 %
Safari 4.7 %
Opera 1.4 %

Design 800x600 with self-centering whitespace around it.
I hate sites that are flushed left (or right).

[FrostyMug]

i design for width no more than 750. i myself have a huge 20" screen with more than 2,000 pixels wide, but I never had a website open on the whole screen. in fact, my start bar is always on the side right and i have at least 8 Firefox windows open, each with numerous tabs, plus other programs. when a site is more than 800.. i actually get annoyed it doesn't fit into a scaled browser window and close it completely.

[altawoogy]

Fluid width is the way to go. This creates various issues for us making the pages, but 800px tables have never looked right on a lot of screens neither! Once a favorites menu is brought up, even 800px tables aren't safe from sideways scrolling. Absolute positioning, fluid elements and less wasted space are the goal from now on. Even the little pubic stripe sites that many of you are still making...try them out with a big fat favorites menu open. All the trouble you've gone to make your site thin is out the window..

Why would you cater to the lowest common denominator of 800px, leaving the majority of your visitors looking at a mohawk site? If you use %'s and absolute positioning, there should never be horizontal scrolling NO MATTER THE RESOLUTION. The real issue here is getting IE and FF to treat the absolute positioning CSS the same, which makes our job easier.

Lastly, different screen SHAPES & favorites menus, moreso than just resolution size, are deeming fixed widths extinct. 760x600 tables look pathetically small on my widescreen and don't fit on my work computer with a favorites menu on.... Back to where we started: Design for the MAJORITY of your users - you will NEVER satisfy all environments.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Fluid width is the way to go.

I don't know about that but I think we are going around in circles. Isn't this where I came in?

Opinions - opinions - opinions!

[texasville]

I read most of this with some interest. I skipped some..repititious..so excuse me if this has been brought up.
I can't sell full screen layout to clients. I recently had one tell me exactly what they wanted, including full screen layout. I mocked it up and when the ceo, cfo, and managers looked at it, they immediately said they really wanted it like this...and proceeded to show me sites all based on 750. lol.
I reduced it to 770 (btw my preferred) and they bought it. No other changes.
I think corporate heads are stuck in the 90's.

[Hester]

FrostyMug - good point about the Taskbar being on the side.

amznVibe: "I hate sites that are flushed left (or right)." - There's one reason I've found for positioning a site flush left. It lets IE7 users zoom in more before they get a scrollbar. Besides, I like sites flushed left myself. Seems natural to me. And you can just narrow the browser window to the edge of them.

Great discussion, guys!

[abhishekkaushik]

There is small problem when designing for higher resolution although I assume that your visitor(Using 800 pixel screen) will be able to tolerate the horizontal scrolling the problem is when we place advertisement code on the right side of page as a vertical bar this area is hidden and need to scrolled by the users if he is using 800 wide screen this way you will lose some clicks that otherwise you could have got.

[cmarshall]

I assume that your visitor(Using 800 pixel screen) will be able to tolerate the horizontal scrolling

Can't assume that. Horizontal scrolling is considered one of the most evil things that you can do to a user. It's right up there with giving them a lancet and asking them to provide a glucose sample before they can use the site.

I only allow it in extreme cases, where the contents of the page MUST be displayed horizontally, or the user has a very small screen (in which case, they are already used to horizontal scrolling. I hate to assume that for 800X600, but that's what this thread is about). Basically, people are designing sites now that require h-scrolling for 1024 X 768 (or larger).

The basic site structure and navigation should NEVER, EVER cause h-scrolling, unless it is necessary for the fundamental operation of the site contents. Many designers get incredibly arrogant, and consider small screens to be an affront to their artistic vision, as opposed to a challenge to be met and overcome by creative interaction design.

I'm working on a site rewrite that will include repurposing the site for WML 1 & WML 2 (XHTML-MP) handheld/phone screens. I'm looking forward to the challenge. I have done it in a fairly limited fashion before this, but the new site will be a lot more ambitious. It will be a real bear to design, but, as I said, I look forward to it (It may be a while before we get to that part. We're still laying out the requirements now).

[Dabrowski]

The basic site structure and navigation should NEVER, EVER cause h-scrolling

Totally agree - although......I know it's unrelated and again a minority thing, the mouse on a fruit computer has h-scrolling on the wheel, which would make it much more bearable.

I only have a v-scroll wheel so I actually have to go out of my way to h-scroll, that's what annoys me more, not that the site has a h-scroll although it does reflect poor desgin, but that I had to go out of my way which makes me lose my place on the page.

Man that sounds arrogant?

[cmarshall]

You are correct. I use a "fruit computer," but I hate the Mighty Mouse. The 2-D scroller is very, very nice, but the hidden left and right mouse buttons completely stink. I keep right-clicking stuff by accident.

In any case, I use a laptop, so I'm using the trackpad or a Bluetooth mouse most of the time.

[cmarshall]

Oh yeah, one other thing: That v-scroll thing about losing your place. That's a perennial problem. I address that in the site I'm prototyping now by putting up a position:fixed overlay (FF, Opera, Safari, IE7) or a popup (IE5, IE6). This allows a long, vertically-scrolled list to remain in the same position, or even be scrolled separately.

It's all in the design.

[hutcheson]

>I think corporate heads are stuck in the 90's.

Not disagreeing at all, but just to clarify: did you mean 1890's or 1490's?

[DamonHD]

Most of the major advances in typography happened sometime between those two, IMHO!

Rgds

Damon