800x600?

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[Lee]

So I'm exploring a new theme for Quit Your Day Job and I'm wondering does anyone still especially cater for 800x600 resolution?

[Lani]

I don't.  It's down to 8% share now, I think.

[kathiemt]

I still design webpages that are 800 pixels wide - I find that many I'm working with still don't have very wide monitors so I design for them. Why did you want to know?

[Lee]

Why did you want to know?

I'm working on a theme that is 900 something wide and I've always designed for 800 in the past but like the space in this wider theme.  It's the options theme that was mentioned elsewhere here in the forum and I just really like it and feel like a change.

[Lani]

I guess one way to work it out, if it's for an already live site, is to look at your stats and see what your % for 800x600 is.  I think if it's anything techy or trekky  you'd be pretty safe to give it a miss, but in some niches, the numbers might be a whole lot bigger than that 8%.  It also depends on what you want to do.  If you need the space, I think you should use it.  If you don't, you may as well cater for the "little people" too.

[Mr V]

If I can keep up with a decent sized monitor then the rest of the world should be able to as well! Give the 800 the flick! 1024 all the way (at least).

First site I designed and fiddled with had to be 1000 pixels wide anyway because the images that needed to be displayed with a middle alignment were 900 wide themselves. I had those dimensions before I even knew enough to consider older resolutions, but I just thought 'bugger 'em'.

[goatlady]

Obviously there are people that have older computers, but it's actually been not possible to buy a new monitor capable of 800x600 resolution for at least 3+ years.

That's for desktop computers, of course... and regular laptops have had higher resolutions than 800x600 for even longer.

HOWEVER... there are a lot of devices that are getting more and more popular lately that have small screens - smartphones, PDAs, etc... and recently the very sexy eeePC has come out and that has a screen resolution of 800x480. My other half has hacked his to have a resolution that's 1024 pixels wide but the users who will do that will be in the vast minority.

I think that scalable resolution is the nicest, but it's worth at least thinking about what will happen on a smaller resolution. If you can have your main content visible with perhaps your sidebar hidden, at least then people can still read your posts. Some layouts totally break at small resolutions.

[Lani]

Yay, an informed opinion!  I tend to forget about those little things like phones / PDAs because I would never use them for the web myself.  Because the screens are so small.  Nice to know the eee can be hacked like that.  If when I ever get one, I'll have to figure out how to do it.

my sites are mostly fixed width , based on the themes I've chosen, but if I ever get a block of time I would really like to go through them all and make them work for accessibility.

Incidentally, when you can't get the site to look how you like for smaller resolutions, what do you think of the idea of using a theme switcher for those with accessibility issues, and smaller screen resolutions? Because that would be far easier for me, with my limited skillset, than trying to jimmy some of my current theme elements.

[goatlady]

A theme switcher is a great idea... I might consider that, given my audience is super-geeky

I tried a plugin a while back that was supposed to detect devices like PDAs and smartphones and use a different theme... but it didn't work properly for me.

[scotty]

I designed a new theme for one of my sites in January, with a fixed wide layout at 1000px (changed from elastic layout). Then the users complained -- not from those with 800px wide monitors, but from those with 24" to 30" wide LCDs!! I was trying to argue that if you have such a big monitor, you wouldn't maximise your browser window to fit the whole screen, would you? But apparently that's what they have been doing so I have to adjust my theme to be elastic again...

With regarding to 800px. Well, my ASUS Eee PC is 800x480, so are those Nokia browsing appliances (N770/N800/N810). I think 800px is making a come-back with those tiny PC/browsing appliances.

[fern]

I still design for 800x600, but more out of habit than necessity I think a fluid option is the way to go, but they can often be a PITA to design for!

[Lani]

One thing I dislike about fluid width (and people who use the full screen on enormous monitors) is that at certain point, the design is going to look ugly because the text is so wide. 

I'm starting to lean towards unfloated images in posts as a better design choice now for that reason, because  the text placement relative to images is important both for appearance and  for meaning.

Also, I think there is research somewhere on a maximum text width suitable for reading with human eyes and I don't think the full width of the larger monitors is within it.

[Lee]

Well it's all done now and no complaints so far.  It's my place anyway so I'll do what I like 

[Sueblimely]

I have been designing websites for 1024 for a year or so now but until there is a reliable cross browser way of creating a fluid design with a maximum width I am sticking to a fixed width of 1000. I think wide screen monitors stretch the content too much -  not only from the design point of view but for readability purposes.  Columns of text that are too wide can cause eye strain.

Although I use wide screens myself, I always have them maximized. I find it too distracting having multiple windows showing in the background and my auto pilot likes to go directly to menus without searching for them - file menu top right, close window top left etc   

[goatlady]

One thing I dislike about fluid width (and people who use the full screen on enormous monitors) is that at certain point, the design is going to look ugly because the text is so wide.

There are CSS techniques that allow sites to stretch up to a certain maximum. It's a little more effort for the person marking up the site but well worth it in my opinion. On http://www.bepacked.com/ for example I've set the content area to stretch from about 800-odd pixels to a maximum of 1200. It keeps the content centered as well so that on my enormous bloody monitors it's still readable

[Ben Barden]

I designed a new theme for one of my sites in January, with a fixed wide layout at 1000px (changed from elastic layout). Then the users complained -- not from those with 800px wide monitors, but from those with 24" to 30" wide LCDs!! I was trying to argue that if you have such a big monitor, you wouldn't maximise your browser window to fit the whole screen, would you? But apparently that's what they have been doing so I have to adjust my theme to be elastic again...

Glad I'm not the only one who thinks this way. I have a 17" screen on my laptop and I don't maximise my browser because I have things down the left-hand side - such as Windows Live Messenger, Winamp, my desktop icons (although those are usually hidden by the other two)... Meanwhile, I have two 20" screens on my desktop and in theory I could have my browser approximately 3200 pixels wide!  But I still don't maximise it, not even on one screen, as in my opinion it makes sites a lot more difficult to use.

[Sephyroth]

I'm the same way with not maximizing the window - usually, it fills about 2/3rd of the screen - that leaves the right third for skype, and a couple of other windows. It is quite handy to have a widescreen monitor.

[Ben Barden]

I saw a non-widescreen monitor last week (in a photo, I think) and thought "Wow!  That looks weird!"

[Lani]

There are CSS techniques that allow sites to stretch up to a certain maximum. It's a little more effort for the person marking up the site but well worth it in my opinion. On http://www.bepacked.com/ for example I've set the content area to stretch from about 800-odd pixels to a maximum of 1200. It keeps the content centered as well so that on my enormous bloody monitors it's still readable

Thanks, Goatlady!  That's handy to know.  When I get the time to do my redesign, I'll have to look into ways of doing that.

[neerav]

I try and make sure all the sites I create have most features working at 800x600 browser size as uptil late last year they were around 10% of my website visitors

I just checked the stats on 2 of my sites and 2 other sites I have stats access to and the results for 800x600 were between 3.5% and 6.6% of visitors

This makes me wonder whether I should now be optimising for 1024x768 instead which more than a 1/3rd of people are using across all 4 sites measured

What do you think?

PSeven If I optimise for 1024x768, the sites will still resize to display at 800x600, but probably with part of the right sidebar missing

[guera]

Neerav, I merged this topic with a previous one about designing for 800x600 display.

[John Lampard]

Yep, I still design for 80x60... I'm also a fixed width control freak, I've never liked "fluid" CSS layouts.

I usually aim to set up the width of the main content column so that the number of words in any one line of text doesn't get too high. I've read 10 to 12 words per sentence is considered an optimum number (though I exceed that a little)...

I hate the fluid layouts that fit across the whole screen and result in about 100 words being on each line... some ppl need to add in some margins.

[John Lampard]

Neerav, I merged this topic with a previous one about designing for 800x600 display.

Ah ha... that explains the in-fourm funkiness (some weird error messages) I just encountered trying to respond to Neerav's question.

[neerav]

what about the massive amount of white space on today's average 19inch+ LCD monitor?

I've seen centred 800x600 sites on those monitors and they look strange taking up so little space on screen

Yep, I still design for 80x60... I'm also a fixed width control freak, I've never liked "fluid" CSS layouts.

I usually aim to set up the width of the main content column so that the number of words in any one line of text doesn't get too high. I've read 10 to 12 words per sentence is considered an optimum number (though I exceed that a little)...

I hate the fluid layouts that fit across the whole screen and result in about 100 words being on each line... some ppl need to add in some margins.

[John Lampard]

what about the massive amount of white space on today's average 19inch+ LCD monitor?

Yeah I know. But I think excess whitespace is better than trying to read a line of text, from one side to the other, of a 19 inch, or bigger, monitor.

I've used background patterns in the past to create the illusion of "filling in" the space, but that's all it was, fill in. Magazine style layouts might be a "solution" to the increasing amount of screen real estate though, if your site has a multiple content streams that is.

I've seen centred 800x600 sites on those monitors and they look strange taking up so little space on screen

Indeed... I've seen my site on a studio display monitor... it looked simultaneously weird and cool, like an island in an ocean

ETA: K10K BTW is a good (though v old skool) example of a 1024x768 layout... a place for everything and everything in its place.