How important is it to design for 800x600 displays?

chat2joe

Hey!

Just starting on a new site here, have a design looking nice in 1024x768 or above. How important is it to keep designing for 800x600? I don't know anyone that's still using a resolution that low...

NOTE: The site is for a college club so a huge amount of traffice will come from within the college - all above 800x600.

Thanks,
Joe

Creamy Goodness

i'm fairly behind on web-design but i think the best is to use percentage measurements so that everything looks good on any resolution.

guys please correct me if i'm wrong.

Goodshape

Not very important, imho.

However, I'd still consider it best practice to put the most important information somewhere on the page that will be visible in 800x600 without scrolling.

Re: percentage measurements / variable widths :: Can be great if your design allows for it but often leads to a design that never looks *great* in any resolution. Sort of depends on the content of the website whether or not a variable width is a good idea (i.e. boards.ie's text heavy nature suits it quite well).

DJB

Designing for 1024x768 seems to be accepted as the norm nowadays.

democrates

Yesterday the bbc started phasing out 800 for 1024, they say 95% of browsers now present at 1024 or wider.

The only thing to bear in mind is the new generation of tiny portables like the XO, EEE etc which tend to be limited to 800 in colour, if they catch on in a big way or a customer has the need or developing countries are a target audience that might weigh heavier.

Goodshape +1 on the myth of elastic one size fits all designs, given the above portables and iPhones etc the best tack is to use templates to present the content for various resolutions as well as for accessibility.

At least on the back end for admin, editor, authors etc. 1024 tends to be aok, just as well considering most of your cms complexity is presented there.

kjt

DJB wrote: »

Designing for 1024x768 seems to be accepted as the norm nowadays.

+1

CuLT

Even if you want to cater to that small percentage of 800x600 users, think about it in terms of how it is going to affect your 1024x768 and above users. If it in any way, shape or form negatively affects them, immediately discard it, because inconveniencing 95% of your users is a hell of a lot worse than disregarding 5% of them.

diagram

We manage several sites for large corporates in the UK and as an average over these sites 93% of people are on 1024x768 or higher.

For mainstream sites 1024x768 is definitely the way to go. The only issue is mobile. You will probably need to build a separate site at a lower res.

EKRIUQ

Just checked the last 500 logs from a community website I look after


Looks fairly conclusive less than 1% and I know who one of the 800x600 people is.

democrates

BingoBongo wrote: »

Looks fairly conclusive less than 1% and I know who one of the 800x600 people is.

I bet it's the same guy I know, is he an outright skinflint who wouldn't spend Christmas and got that pc for a fiver at a little sisters of the worthless miracle car boot sale in 2003?

Diagram mentioned lower res for mobile, bang on, when authors upload images that's the time to auto-resize for the various sized clients. If you've already got a batch online in awkward sizes I'm guessing there are plug-ins for drupal et al that can batch resize and update the database.

Liam Byrne

BingoBongo wrote: »

Just checked the last 500 logs from a community website I look after


Looks fairly conclusive less than 1% and I know who one of the 800x600 people is.

Handy graph to have.....the only question I'd have is whether some of the "unknown" ones are 800x600 or - gasp! :eek: - lower ??

axer

I'm showing about 5%-6% 800x600 on my busiest website.

The global figure will vary depending on the target audience of the website in question but I'd say at this stage its looking like definitely less than 10% use 800x600.

I find the best compromise is, for example, to build the website for 1024x768 in a 3 column layout and have the left column and the middle columns with the most important information - beit navigation and main content and then have the third collum with extra benifitial content or shortcut content that is a party bonus if the person is using a resolution >= 1024x768. That way although those on the 800x600 have scroll bars, they at least have access to the important info without scrolling across.

daymobrew

BingoBongo wrote: »

Just checked the last 500 logs from a community website I look after


Looks fairly conclusive less than 1% and I know who one of the 800x600 people is.

My StatCounter stats for a busy site show 1.4% at 800x600 (7 out of 500), though 13.8% (69 out of 500) with "Unknown" but that could be me from a Solaris SunRay device.

chat2joe

Thanks for the replies!

I find the best compromise is, for example, to build the website for 1024x768 in a 3 column layout and have the left column and the middle columns with the most important information - beit navigation and main content and then have the third collum with extra benifitial content or shortcut content that is a party bonus if the person is using a resolution >= 1024x768. That way although those on the 800x600 have scroll bars, they at least have access to the important info without scrolling across.

That's exactly how it is actually!

Due to be launched now tomorrow, I'll post a link for ye to have a look!

wheres me jumpa

DJB wrote: »

Designing for 1024x768 seems to be accepted as the norm nowadays.

There was a time, lower res display was the first question fired at a site critique here. The next question was always how quickly it loaded on dial up!

How far we have come!

chat2joe

Got it online, still needs to be moved up a directory but working!
www.galwaydiving.com

Out of 230 page loads yesterday, zero 800x600 users!

eoiner-galway

nice site, its perfect