i just read that you should design your site with 800x600 browser cos lots of people use that setting but i have just almost completed my site in 1024 cos that's what my computer is set to. will i have a problem with people who has 800x600:eek: :eek:

One of the biggest mistakes a designer can make is allowing himself to fall into the trap of thinking everyone will view his site the same way on their monitors that he is viewing it during production. It sounds to me like you fell into that trap ;)

There are very few people who use 800x600 as a screen resolution anymore. There are still some! Just not many.

But a browser is a window. It is not necessarily the same size as your screen, and the higher someone's resolution, the more likely they are to not have a fully maximized browser window. This means people with the same resolution as you or higher could just as easily see a cut-off site and not want to bother adjusting their browsers to view it fully.

So yeah, you may run into problems there.

I would agree with that as I have noticed I have many windows open with my 1900x1200 resolution. I usually keep my window at about 900 pixels or so. I hate when sites use 1024 right now. I think around 900 is about right, though I still design for 800 even for sports sites.

The only site I did above 800 (760) was one site which was a sports site that I knew everyone had higher resolutions and that I had to because of the content that was outputted to the site. It had to be around 960.

I currently design websites in 780px.
I think maybe in a year or so you will have a 1024 specs as a standard for designing.

1024 px is not to bad, I think you will be ok. There is just a small minority of people who use 800 resolution.

Heck most people have a monitor that is 17" now anyway, before they had 15" a few years back.

Dont worry about it. You should be ok.
In your next design you have something to think about.

yes i fell into the trap thinking everyone else's computer is like mine but i can't imagine people still using 800x600 everything is so big!

i will leave my site alone as you suggested gregory. can i assume that since the next lower setting on my screen after 1024 is 800x600, that i cannot design a site in 780 or 900?

In my experience there's not necessarily a set resolution that a designer should design for. Each site should be treat individually, which means preliminary research should be done(Opinion). Monitoring user statistics is a very good place to start, although it's definately not gospel (As the_pm mentioned, a lot of users with higher resolutions tend to use only a portion of the screen).

Of course, you could always try a fluid design, if you're not adament on using a fixed design. I guess 756-768px would be considered "safe" - But I really would recommend putting some research/foundation behind design decisions.

There are very few people who use 800x600 as a screen resolution anymore. There are still some! Just not many.

a couple million people in the world are still using 800x600 resolution. Don't forget the usability - the website should support all resolutions and all browsers!

If your screen is configured to have 800x600 pixels, an image with the same proportions will fill the entire screen.
On the contrary, if the screen is configured to have 1600x1200 pixels the same image will fill out only 1/4th of the screen (half the width and half the height.)

Most people use a screen resolution of 1024x768 pixels however, if you develope in a 800x600 pixels screen resolution I've found it to make all the difference. Back when I was learning about web development (mostly personal sites) I used to design in 1024x768 pixels, after realizing on other computers the amount of scrolling, the look just wasn't what I had expected.

You can't make others change what they perfer, it would be in your best intrest to design for the rest of the world. This is an area that differs and there is no way to please everyone. A good web designer can create a web site that looksgood and functions well, bottom line.

a couple million people in the world are still using 800x600 resolution. Don't forget the usability - the website should support all resolutions and all browsers!Unfortunately, you only quoted a small part of what I said ;)

The whole point of my post was to make it clear that monitor resolution didn't matter, because even people with higher resolutions are going to browse with non-maximized browser windows.

But if you want to get picky, let's pretend ]only 1/5 of the world has online access (a low number, but it will do), and let's use your "couple million" estimate. That means 99.83% of the world browses with a screen resolution other than 800x600. I'll stand by my assertion that .16% is very few (still must be accounted for, but very few) :D

i design with a max width of 780px at the moment but if a site will have significant advantage to it being wider it will and then make it scale down so it is still userable for 800x600 but not to its optimum.

I generally try to design for 800x600 resolutions. If you stick to 960px (or so) and below you shouldn't run into too many problems.

I do not think 1024 is that bad... those who use lower resolution will just have to scroll...

I designed my page for 1024x768 above, I noticed only 8% of my site visitors using 800x600 resolutions.

How about building it with "fluid" type, like something in the css, width: auto; or width: 100%; it will make your site a bit flexible in any resolution. Just my 2 cents though

A great topic. I was curious how many people still use an 800 x 600. I try not to go over 780 right now either.

Of course, then my clients with 22 or 24" widescreens complain about too much empty space on either side. Some understand why that is but some have no idea what I'm talking about.