What is the best width to design a website, 1024 or 800?

 

(short and sweet huh?)

I used to always design for 800 but just under a year ago I decided to drop it and now go for 1024. This is because I am able to have a little extra space and also because the % of people still using 800*600 is quite low now, so I don't see the point in designing for that resolution.

I used to always design for 800 but just under a year ago I decided to drop it and now go for 1024. This is because I am able to have a little extra space and also because the % of people still using 800*600 is quite low now, so I don't see the point in designing for that resolution.

 

Ditto to that.

 

I also design for 1024.

SNAP

BBC go for 1024, and think of the massive audience and range of users and their computers and monitors they have to consider.

I remember reading something about 800*600 resolutions being less than 0.05% now, meaning we can abolish designing for them?

 

My theory on things like this (and applies for ie6) is that the people using these older technologies will recieve a much worse experience (websites being really bad on small resolutions and old browsers) and will eventually update. We just have to accomodate for them until they make that decision.

I disagree Russ. Why make a large majority of people squint to see your website just so the minority can view it better. Once Yahoo!, Myspace, Facebook, ebay, Amazon, etc... decided to go for 1024 resolution Thats when I decided it was safe to start designing in 1024

1024 all day long, might even start doing 1280 soon! Or at least so it's liquid for both?

 

Agree with the comments about BBC and various other larger corporate websites, they spend so much on user research, so they are usually good to follow.

I see your point, TFM. But Electric, that's a silly decision. Most people are on 1024*768, so why would you ruin the majority's experience?

1024 all day long, might even start doing 1280 soon! Or at least so it's liquid for both?

 

It is hard not to be tempted to design for 1280. My laptop screen is 1280, and makes 1024 layouts look small.

Within the last month I've finally bit the bullet and moved to designing for 1024.

There are other things to consider as well. First of all some people dont like to have their browsers full screen. But really expanding out isnt such a bad thing. Why does everyone else on the internet have to suffer due because of these tards who insist on using 10 year old CRT's that cant stretch further than 800. It boggles me.

Oh of course there's temptation, I'm on 1440x900 and will soon b 1920, but my Web Developer Toolbar's resize soon brings me down to earth

I'm on 1440x900 and will soon b 1920

 

Goodness! that's a big one! I really like the idea of having a large screen size, purely as I run about 3 applications all at the same time.

But Electric, that's a silly decision. Most people are on 1024*768, so why would you ruin the majority's experience?

 

Being tempted isn't the same as falling into the honey trap ;-) We use 1920*1200 Dell's 24" monitors today, and have been tempted to make the website liquid to fit both 1024 AND 1280, not hard to do, just haven't had the opportunity yet.

 

You can also say that if you don't make websites liquid, you are ruining them for everyone who got above average screen resolution ;-)

1024 Never used smaller probs due to the 19" monitor i had with my first computer. I have 24" monitor and websites do look rather silly at full res. I tend to have my laptop beside me running 1024x768 or its native res of 1440x900 to get a better of idea how people will be seeing it.

 

Have to agree with people mentioning the big websites using 1024, cant be any reason to start designing with 800px

I guess it depends partly on your target audience. If you know that the people looking at the site are likely to be more or less familiar with the way computers work then it's likely that they'll have a decent sized screen to view it all on, and then designing for 1024 is perfectly acceptable. I personally am not in that position, because a lot of the sites I design have to be accessible to older people who are more likely to have smaller screens and older computers. Last year one of my biggest web sites still had almost 30% of visitors using 800x600. So my approach is to stick to fluid layouts as much as possible, so that the site looks good on all sizes, not just the one we see on our own computer. Because, let's face it, if we're designers then we're even more likely to need a bigger screen than average! You can still be precise and creative and clever with fluid layouts and create some stunning effects. Just requires a little more lateral thinking to make sure it all scales in the right places.

I only recently decided to move to designing for a 1024 ever since seeing the trend of sites doing it yes I think the BBC was the one I saw first too!

 

Unfortunately there are people still out there using CRT's and crappy IE 6 most of these are poorer schools and families that can't afford to upgrade as much as the rest of our disposable culture, but the least they can do is to update to IE 7, or get Firefox!

W3C 2008 Screen Resolution Stats

 

W3C 2008 Screen Resolution Stats

 

 

Well I wouldnt really rely on those statistics really, those are the Stats for their own page. I highly doubt the average user would be going to that site. Mostly people like us will be part of those stats.

 

If we could get the stats of google or yahoo's search page that would probably be the most accurate. Do they show that anywhere actually? If not they should put it in the web developer section... that would be awesome!

To be fair though, that is 5 years worth of data so you can clearly see how trends have changed on their site in line with your own opinions.

 

I'd say it was a pretty safe bet to say that they were the typical web trend!

Always best to go by the most popular screen resolution amongst users (check here http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_pressb...solutions.html) and as you can see for a while now its been 1024x768 although personally I still like to design for 800 width but at the same time 768 height (above the fold) thats just personal preference though

 

or you could just go with liquid layout lol, which is prob gona be the way forward now with mobile phones becoming more and more popular size for browsers

I agree with chink, the mobile generation is fast approaching and liquid layouts will be compulsory. With the amount of different gadgets coming out at the moment with internet access, who knows what your website will be viewed on?

Another possible solution, design for 'somewhere in between'. Bit cheeky perhaps, but I've done experimental designs where the basic width is about 900px, which means that on an 800x600 screen you lose the border of the page but not the content, and on a 1024 screen you get to see more of the background.

 

To take an example of this, I recently saw this web site - www.dnaadvertising.co.uk - which is completely flash-based (but I won't hold that against them on this occasion). At 800x600 you can't really see everything, which is a pain. In fact, at 1024 you can only just see everything. It's only at resolutions higher than that that you get to see the background texture and the button in the top right corner that changes the background image. Pretty cool, just a shame not everyone will get to see it. Anyway, just thought I'd throw that into the melting pot!

i would say 800, but i'm no expert

Indeed, I am sure a large percentage of the users on here view the web on their mobiles? And probably using a wider selection of browsers that we use on our desktops...

 

If someone is on 800 x 600 chances are there system will be limited by other constraints rather than just size (browser, plugins etc.)

I do 1024, if someone doesn't want to upgrade then I don't want that person on my site.

Another possible solution, design for 'somewhere in between'. Bit cheeky perhaps, but I've done experimental designs where the basic width is about 900px, which means that on an 800x600 screen you lose the border of the page but not the content, and on a 1024 screen you get to see more of the background.

 

When I made my portfolio I made it with this idea in mind. Unfortunately I coded my site straight out of school (not as experienced) and didn't work exactly how I expected. The way I did it still shows scroll bars I still have it like that if you want to see what im talking about its in my sig. I should fix that someday ;P

 

 

Also good point about the cellphones. I forgot about that. I still feel strongly that the major webistes like yahoo have done their homework though.

There is only so wide your text can be before it becomes unreadable.

 

Therefore, even with the "design" being 1024, it is usually possible to ensure that the most important content is onscreen for 800x600 users...

 

I design at 1024x768 with 800x600 and 1280x1024 in mind - i.e. if it looks awful at either of those resolutions I'm not doing my job!

70% of my sites are liquid, of those that use fixed width the largest i have made one is around 800.

 

My understanding

The whole point in limiting fixed width is to ensure the design (not the text) can be held by browsers without having to scroll in two directions. The text should be held at a much lower width so as to render the text in a format the user is used to (newspaper columns).

 

My opinion:

With all this in mind I was quite happy with my liquid sites.

 

My problem

There are more and more users starting to browse from their tvs in their livingrooms. Liquid designs work the best still (in my opintion) but text across such a large screen looks... unusable.

 

What i will do about it

Iv'e still not decided but i'm guessing the best thing would be a mix between liquid and fixed.

 

"Balance. The Ultimate Goal."

Ricky Lankford

Here in Brazil I must design for 800x600; about 15% of people uses that resolution. 15% is a lot of people to me.

I'm still sticking to 800x600 because a lot of the targets that I get might be elderly, so they're more likely to have older computers.