markr1963

We're in the process of having our website redesigned and there's some lively debate about what size page we should go for, namely 800x600 or 1024x768. Me and the developer favour 800x600 but our marketing bod favours the larger size.

What do you guys and gals think? Vote now

Mark

angrynorth

Work within 765 x 550 if you want to be safe.
Best to make sure every one can see it.

Then again it depends on your market, if you are hitting a load of tech savvy people then go for 985 x 710 but if you want to get everyone and make the site nice to use go 765 x 550 this obviously takes into account the space used by a browser.

markr1963

angrynorth:
Thanks for your comments. Our market is potentially anyone including public sector. Having worked for a local authority in a former life I know that IT spend isn't always a priority and equipment is often way out of date so that alone would lead me to the smaller size

Mark

judgejules

If a site is built right it should fit into all sizes

Componentise the content in whatever method takes your fancy and detect the screen size at page run time.

As above, if its public sector they usually tend to fall behind the trend, but stats are starting to come out showing 1024x768 based sizes are actually winning with the releases of Windows XP recomending you increase the rez during install.

HTH

J

markr1963

Judgejules:
Interesting ideas, thanks. Do you have a source for those stats?

Mark

angrynorth

I would recommend against screen res detection scripts as they only add further compatibility problems. I've asked our stats guy here at work and this is what we have for screen res. It's surprising to learn how many people there are out there using low screen res.

800 x 600 47.9%
1024 x 768 21.6%
Not specified 16.1%
640 x 480 10.0%
1280 x 1024 2.5%
1152 x 864 1.9%

That is our site but the global internet stats show a different story.

1024x768 *
176112366
(49%)

800x600 *
133757307
(37%)

1280x1024 *
22877234
(6%)

1152x864 *
13236678
(3%)

640x480 *
4235908
(1%)

Unknown *
4202127
(1%)

1600x1200 *
2598681
(0%)

This may just confuse you further, but I would go for 800 x 600. If you look around at most pro sites they are all built to 800 x 600 because you can't just write off such a large percentage of users.

markr1963

angrynorth:
That's very helpful, cheers

Mark

darlodge

640x480 *
4235908
(1%)


They must have either bad eye sight or are working on a calculator

Darren

Dream Weaver

defo 800x600.

If you go the 1024 way, 800 users have to scroll accross, if you go 800, it just means 1024 users see the site centralised.

Another way is to have the main site as 800, but to the side you have extra content which only shows for 1024 users.

760 px wide is best bet, but all depends on design. A simple design can allow you to use expanding percentages.

cong

yep have to agree 800x600 is better! better for those people who cant be bothered to focus on the item and most user use that res because its easier to see things and it should also be quicker to load up, and old graphic cards can handle the res