Web Hosting Talk : Other Forums : Web Hosting Lounge : what size screen go you design your web pages for?

Just wondering what you guys use when you make a page with tables do you use percent or pixels? I was told if you make a page in a screen resolution of 800x600 and the tables being no larger than 760 pixels it would always fit is that ture? My montor is 15.9 and ever page with 760 pixels in any resolution that i tried it in fit.

[Greg]

I make my latest sites in percentages using tables, frames is cheating...lol, and i check them in all resolutions as i make them, i also check the sites under both navigator and explorer.

[theNonsuch]

Yep - percentages is the way to go. The way things used to go was designers would aim for 640x480, but have "bonus" stuff in a column along the right hand size for those with 800x600 and larger...

I usually work out a mix of fixed cell sizing and dynamically re-sizing cells so that the sections I want to be a certain size are... but the entire page will stretch to fit larger window sizes if available.

Neil

[GeorgeC]

Dido that theNonsuch. I used to use pixels for my main tables, but then switched to percentage after Cnet did it. You can't go wrong by imitating the best

[Adam_S]

Choosing between pixels and percentages really goes with the design of the site, rather than a standard.

I've designed and written numerous e-commerce sites now, and the ratio between the two is almost 50:50. Personally I prefer by pixel as you have more control of what goes where, especially with the "blank image cheat". This solves the issue with Navigator making up the interpretation of your code as it goes along as well.

By percentage is a little harder to control (as you well know) because of the difference of peoples resolution, and secondly because some people prefer to have their browser window non-maximised. It is very hared to compromise web page layout with percentage, though Flash has its benefit of being able to look the same, and be the “actual” same size of everyone’s machine when placed as a percentage of the window size.

All-in-all, the decision between the two methods lies in the design and content of your site. Though, more and more often am I seeing “minimalist” websites rather than the busy “MSN” style information overloaded sites.

The last site I wrote was a mixture like Neil mentioned above. This is a great compromise sometimes, when neither seem to work out alone for you.

[spcover]

I design all my sites for 640x480. Normally I won't even work wider than 600 pixels. I once had a Mac user tell me not to design wider than 580 pixels because scroll bars are much thicker on Macs.

I like the control of the layout and the text in fixed width tables. In news layouts, with which I work most often, paragraphs of text can stretch so thin in a wide-screen flexible format and lose any connection with images or photos embedded in the paragraphs. It can really get messy sometimes.

Guess it depends on what purpose you're designing for.

Sean

[Duster]

This might help put things into perspective on why sites are usually designed for 800x600 http://websnapshot.mycomputer.com/monitorres.html

If you design for 640x480, it's going to be way too big for the majority of users, almost childlike or Reader's Digest large type edition).

Here's a site that typifies this. http://pnews.org Go inside the site and you'll see what I mean.

[DanielP]

I'd agree with duster, 800x600 is the minimum (well knock off a few pixels so it fits and doesn't get too crammed against the sides)

but also a design for 640 on a 1024 resolution monitor can be kinda small occasionally .

[JustinK]

I think the amount of time you want to spend on designing it counts too. If your on a shorter time limit then being exact should keep everything looking the way you want it to. The first sites I made were all percentaged and a tad bit of a pain to do. I usually stick things in exact pixels now since it's faster and works for most everyone. If enough people go to 800x600 then those 640x480 people will be forced into the realm of the norm. I know, kind of mean, but in a computer age upgrading is a necessity.

[Chicken]

Upgrading is one thing, but I find that many people actually have monitors that are capable of 800x600, just that they somehow have the setting set lower. A few people I know had this, and I switched it for them, but my goodness, who knows how many more are out there?

[Félix C.Courtemanche]

From the log analyzes I made, in my opinion it is quite not usefull to design in 640x480.
in 1024x768, a 640 design look small... and on a 1280 screen it is a real joke.

Users are about 49% in 800x600 and 49% in 1024x768

remaining 2 percents are seperated in:
- N/A (text browser)
- 640x480
- 1280
- other

sooo... From what I see there, for the quantity of people in 640x480 that anyway would see a web page all c5ramed up to fit in so small, design for 800x600 and lock it if needed so that 640x480- users have to scroll.

Of course, that's only my own advice as a designer, you can do whatever you want

A note on Flash... true it scales to any size if you want it to, but on huge screen like 1280+, a fullscreen flash will require much more CPU power and may look slugglish. and those on 640x480 often doesn't have the pluggin installed

[JTY]

Don't bother with 640x480. I don't design much but what I do I use tables with fixed and percentage width.

[spcover]

I think everyone's views are slanted to 800x600 and higher because you and most of your visitors (at least for web hosts, I'd believe) are all internet-savvy and above-average in use of the internet and use of their computers in general.

However, the average user overall is still a lot less technically-oriented than you think. A visitor to a web hosting company site is not your average user.

My ScarsdaleToday.com site is a news and information guide to the community of Scarsdale, NY. Its typical visitor is an America Online user (as is typical of every mainstream website in Amercia these days).

My statistics, as recorded by WebTrendsLive, show 9.38% of all visitors are using a resolution of 640x480 with 46% at 800x600 and 26% at 1024x768.

Now if I were building an e-commerce site for a client, would I tell that client I plan on alienating almost 10% of their visitors by forcing them to scroll horizontally? Absolutely not.

The first rule of building e-commerce sites is to enhance your site for usability and user-friendliness. Any instance whereby I decrease usability is another reason for a visitor and a potential sale to leave. Getting a sale online is difficult enough so I don't recommend eliminating 9% of your market before you even begin.

Would you design a website that exploded everytime a visitor using an Apple computer visited? Because we're talking about the same percentages here.

A site designed for 640x480 is still very usable for someone at a higher resolution. Yes, the writing might be small, but it's still readable.

You can go on all you want about how people at 640x480 just don't know enough to change their settings, you can reel off a list of poorly constructed sites made especially for 640x480 or any other resolution too (we all know some bad sites that are bad in ALL resolutions), and yes, you can build around the 640x480 limit by putting extra content that can be ignored to the right of the 640th pixel, but unless your site WORKS in 640x480 you have designed a poor site indeed.

The only times you can clearly create a site that specifically ignores the 640x480 limits is when your target market is sufficiently technically advanced that you know with certainty they will be working at higher resolutions. Such instances might be if you are selling expensive Tier 1 business web hosting, if your audience is advanced web graphic artists or Cisco engineers, or if you are working in a corporate intranet controlled environment.

We all know the readers at this Forum are technically advanced. To say that the rest of the world shares our abilities and preferences is not correct. To build websites for our clients with those same preferences in mind can be downright negligent.

Yes, most people do not use monitors at low resolutions. What you build for your own website is your business, but when you are building a site for a client you must build a website that work at all resolutions, except in certain specific cases.

My two cents.

Sean

[theNonsuch]

I agree with what has been said about adjusting your approach to the project at hand... if there's anything I've learned from working in this industry, it's not to take anything as a cardinal rule. To be flexible is to be strong on the Web.

One of my clients is a large portal which has over 12 million pageviews a month. They have to ensure that the user experience for as many of their users is as good as possible... so it's low page weights (45k and under), heavily optimized graphics and page widths that can fix in 640x480 without looking crappy. Their adage is, "it's got to be usable in 640x480 with Netscape 3".

It's a harsh enviroment to design in, but a worthy one... I definitely agree with the comments that the Web should be an inclusive medium. Nothing gets me more pissed of and riled up than ignorant designers who say, "Who cares about people with 33.6 modems and old computers?" That is... unless the site's audience is at a high-tech level.. but, the less sites that turn away users, the better.

I remember taking a trip down to the Southern US (I'm Canadian) a year ago, and having my eyes opened to the real prevalence of "low-tech" access still out there. There were many folks I met who didn't even know what I was talking about when I said "the Web" or "Internet"...

If the Internet is going to be the communcative medium that everyone seems to want it to become... Web builders have to make sure that everyone can come in and sit down... if you get my drift. The furniture we design has to be comfortable for all.

Neil

Neil

[Félix C.Courtemanche]

We have different sources to take our numbers, of course... mine showed under 1% of visitors using 640x480.
These numbers have been compiled from our hosting company's web page and on 3 other totally unrelated web sites (one about beekeeping, one about guestbooks and one about sweepstakes)

They all were similar and showed the same again. Of course, you can always be compatible... with 320x200 if you REALLY want to. but it is very limiting to do so. Even more, our standrad for acceptable under 640 to 1280 resolutions might not be the same as well.

I personally never heard of anyone complaining about a site that was too big for his browser, but I had some complaits from people that thought it was too small..

I don't know, it depends of your poitn of view on this matter. I personally think that 640x480 is too limiting for the benifit of (according to my numbers) 1% of your visitors... and from which were people in a text browser.

Now... is your web site compatible for people browsing it with Internet Explorer 1 and Netscape 1 as well as Opera 1, Lynx 1, and so on...

I say to stick with the standards and find out WHO is going to look at the web site. If your web site is for internet beginners, dont make it in 1280... but if your site is supposed to be visually challenging and for a relatively knowledged user, then why go under 640? No one that have a screen bigger than 10'' and saw what 800x600 and more was... WILL use it.

In brief... don't use all pre-made receipes, they simply won't work. Be carefull in your work and do it well. that's it!