Given the popularity of high resolution digital, TFT and widescreen monitors over the creaky old 800x600 CRT displays of yester-year, is there any point restricting your website design to display correctly on older monitor sizes? Well that is one of those often asked and simple questions that never seems to get a simple answer.
Many would argue that to ensure universal accessibility to your site, a design that displays as well in 800x600 as it does on a 1400 x 900 widescreen display is still essential to good design. Others would say that there comes a point when technology is so outdated that we must declare it obsolete and encourage those still clinging to their steam powered CRT monitors to catch up with the rest of us.
There has to be a judgement made by the designer as to the monitor resolutions of the target audience, and how much the appearance and function of a site would be compromised by restricting maximum width to 800x600, or a completely fluid and flexible design.
If your site has to be graphically intense and stylish to satisfy the client, a fluid layout would limit delivery of this prime requisite, and you can safely expect that the overwhelming majority of your visitors will have screens of 1024 width or above, it would be fairly safe to consign an 800x600 safe design to the recycle bin of history. If however, you are seeking to be accessible to the maximum number of visitors possible, with a largely text based site, then there would be no good reason why your site cannot render in an attractive layout on all resolutions.
The most recent statistics available from W3C, (W3C screen resolution stats) show that as of January 2008, only 8% of their site visitors are still using 800X600 resolutions, with 1024x768 being the most popular, minimum screen size. With year on year stats showing 800x600 decreasing in popularity by about 6%, it could be assumed that by January 2009, the older screen size will be all but dead.
On that basis, any projects in the pipeline could be forgiven for writing off 800x600 and designing solely for screens of 1024 and above.
However, those stats only apply to the W3C site – a site frequented by visitors with an interest in web design and more likely to keep up to date with web technology. We may assume that more general websites would have a higher percentage of less web-savvy visitors and therefore a higher proportion of older resolution sizes. Well a quick glance at one of my own e-commerce sites shows that for June to August 2008, only 4.63% of visitors run at 800x600, (and this is a site with a fluid design which can render well in the smaller screen sizes).
A more recently launched site with a fixed width of 780 pixels is showing only 2.5% of visitors with an 800x600 monitor, suggesting that I could have got away with expanding the canvas and creating a site that more or less ignored this tiny minority group of visitors. If I had done so, that 2.5% of users would have seen a less accessible, and less attractive site and would probably have surfed on elsewhere. Who can say if amongst that disenfranchised minority there wasn’t a potential super-customer with money to burn and a passion for my clients products?
On my own web design site I am still getting a regular 6.5% of visitors, and therefore potential clients, visiting with a screen resolution of 800x60. On that basis I have no plans to ditch the design and risk alienating a dream client who happens to have an old monitor.
By contrast, the new BBC website re-design has resulted in a site that will not re-size below 1024 pixels in width, requiring horizontal scrolling for 800x600 visitors, (or anyone who prefers to partly reduce their browser window). Whatever their percentage of 800x600 visitors, it will be several thousand individual users due to the popularity of the site. The BBC has obviously decided that its time for such visitors to move up or be left behind.
So after all that, what sized resolution should you be designing for?
Ask yourself what sized resolution you actually need to design for. Is it absoloutely essential to take over the entire screen with your design? Do you really need visitors to give your site their entire screen width to view the site properly? Are you happy to penalise people who open multiple panes and have their browser window partly minimised?
Alternatively, will restricting yourself to a smaller layout either by fixed width design or a fluid design that reduces gracefully to 800x600 drastically infringe upon the visual experience that you want to give a client? How much do you value that remaining 6% of visitors still chained to their postage stamp monitors?
Only you can answer those questions, and it will probably be a different answer for each site you design. Personally, all things being equal, I would first seek to create a fluid design to satisfy as many users as possible. If the client demands a style that precludes a fluid design, my second priority would be to try to incorporate a clean design in an 800 width layout at the minimum, with the final option of ignoring all else and going for a 1024 layout being my last resort.
Having said that, if current resolution trends continue as they have been, I will probably have changed my mind by this time next week!
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