Site Designing Stats (800x600?, 256color?, ect.)

[Ekostudios]

The rule of thumb for the past 2-3 years has been:

• 800x600
• 256 colors
• ie and netscape 4.0 or lower
• small on the js
• 28.8
• Flash=evil

Ok now, most people must have upgraded their computers since then!

Can we change any of this?!?
My hopes:

• 1024x768
• 34bit colors (w/ alpha)
• ie and netscape 5.0 or lower
• big on the js
• 56.6
• Flash=used effeciently, and well done

Agree, yes/no?

[rugbystud]

Dont really know - I think most folk have 800X600 and will for some time - its just us designers that cater for the few that use 1024 and up I think. I aint got statitics but most are still 800, I know that!

Just use tables man(100% width, 100% height), they'll confugure to the page size anyhow...

[banglafreak]

i replied to this in the coffee lounge, check it there
yeah tables are very useful.

[Ekostudios]

Ya, but flash/images can cause a site to require a larger res.

The only computers w/ less than 1024x768 ive seen l8ly are school computers. But they tend to have 256colors as well.

I can live w/ 800x600 for about another year or so.

But I'm going to defy the color law and start designing 32bit color, u with me?

And start optimizing more towards a 4k connection over a 2k!!!!!

We can DO it.

[DJ_SFinKz]

I have a suggestion:
I know this should probably go on the flash 6.0 thread but what the heck!
Flash should have a width in percentage, like an optional thing - just like you can have pixels, inches or centermetres in photoshop.
That would be a minor improvement. What do you guys think?

[Ekostudios]

thats code in the html doc.

It's in the publish options, you can change the width and height of the .swf w/ a %.

It's there, do some research!

[Kraken]

http://websnapshot.mycomputer.com/monitorres.html

Monitor REsolution:
800 x 600 52.0%
1024 x 768 24.9%
Not Specified 11.6%
640 x 480 7.1%
1280 x 1024 2.4%
1152 x 864 2.1%

Screen color depth:
65,536 (16-bit) 50.9%
16 million (32-bit) 22.6%
Not specified 11.5%
16 million (24-bit) 9.6%
256 (8-bit) 5.2%
16 (4-bit) 0.2%
4 (2-bit) 0.02%

It's still 800 x 600 at 16-bit color...

Average Joe still hasn't upgraded...
[Edited by Kraken on 02-13-2001 at 03:52 AM]

[DJ_SFinKz]

I can't believe that over 50% of people still have 800x600
I have like double that lol

[aa]

some user research would answer some of those questions.. as for me, i've ditched the 216 pallete. if you can't display more than a handful of colors -- too bad.

i also design for 800px width.

the fact is that around 12-15% of users out there use NS. if you can live with that many people having problems with your site, go for a custom IE functionality. but for me, that's too many to ignore for now.

[boobahex]

does anyone know of a source besides websnapshot.mycomputer.com???

i'm curious if those stats hold up

[GreatGooglyWoogly]

Think twice before designing larger than 600x800. We are still at:

Windows
Windows 98
800x600
Internet Explorer 5.0/5.5

Here are the stats from my site for the last two months:

Platform:

1. Windows 928 86,49%
2. MacOS 102 9,51%
3. Unknown 22 2,05%
4. Unix 16 1,49%
5. Other 5 0,47%
Total 1073 100.00%

OS:

1. Windows 98 524 48,84%
2. Windows 95 139 12,95%
3. Windows NT 5.0 121 11,28%
4. Windows NT 116 10,81%
5. MacOS PowerPC 100 9,32%
6. Unknown 22 2,05%
7. Windows dows NT 5. 18 1,68%
8. Unix 16 1,49%
9. Windows NT 4.0 9 0,84%
10. Other 5 0,47%
11. MacOS 68000 2 0,19%
12. Windows NT4.0 1 0,09%
Total 1073 100.00%

Screen Resolution:

1. 800x600 468 43,62%
2. 1024x768 353 32,90%
3. 1152x864 58 5,41%
4. 1280x1024 53 4,94%
5. 640x480 53 4,94%
6. n/a 32 2,98%
7. 1600x1200 18 1,68%
8. 832x624 13 1,21%
9. 1152x870 12 1,12%
10. 960x720 4 0,37%
11. 2560x1024 2 0,19%
12. 1280x960 2 0,19%
13. 0x0 2 0,19%
14. 1024x742 2 0,19%
15. 560x420 1 0,09%
Total 1073 100.00%

Browsers:
1. MS Internet Explorer 606 56,48%
2. Netscape Navigator 443 41,29%
3. Other 22 2,05%
4. Opera 2 0,19%
Total 1073 100.00%

Browser Specifics
1. MS Internet Explorer 5.0 226 21,06%
2. MS Internet Explorer 5.5 219 20,41%
3. MS Internet Explorer 5.01 120 11,18%
4. Netscape Navigator 4.7 104 9,69%
5. Netscape Navigator 4.75 62 5,78%
6. Netscape Navigator 4.08 46 4,29%
7. Netscape Navigator 4.72 41 3,82%
8. MS Internet Explorer 4.01 38 3,54%
9. Netscape Navigator 4.76 37 3,45%
10. Netscape Navigator 4.73 29 2,70%
11. Netscape Navigator 4.61 26 2,42%
12. Netscape Navigator 4.5 23 2,14%
13. Other 22 2,05%
14. Netscape Navigator 4.74 22 2,05%
15. Netscape Navigator 4.06 15 1,40%
16. Netscape Navigator 4.6 9 0,84%
17. Netscape Navigator 4.51 7 0,65%
18. Netscape Navigator 3.04Gold 6 0,56%
19. Netscape Navigator 4.04 5 0,47%
20. Netscape Navigator 4.03 3 0,28%
21. Opera 4.02 2 0,19%
22. Netscape Navigator 3.04 2 0,19%
23. MS Internet Explorer 4.5 2 0,19%
24. Netscape Navigator 4.71 2 0,19%
25. Netscape Navigator 5.0 2 0,19%
26. Netscape Navigator 4.05 1 0,09%
27. Netscape Navigator 3.01Gold 1 0,09%
28. MS Internet Explorer 2.0 1 0,09%
Total 1073 100.00%

[LuxFX]

wow, very detailed stats. Thanks.

All I can say is...who are the loosers using NS3 and IE2??

I can't believe only 1.5% of users use 1600x1200 like me. Even people I know that CAN, don't--why? It's so nice to have this much screen real estate.

I design for 800x600 too, and don't bother with the web-safe palette anymore (sorry Lynda, it was useful for a time)

cheers!

[darkstar]

java script resizers are becoming fairly popular now.
you can then relax and design for any screen size.

[these_pants_do_not_fit]

i guess the beauty of Flash is that no matter what browser/monitor size the user has, it fits!

But unfortunately it seems the majority of users don't seem to know that if it appears too small just increase the size of the browser...

[HowardTheDuck]

I would say that it's a matter of who is going to visit your pages. I think that if you design a homepage that will only be accessed by graphicians you definitely NOT need to stick to 800x600... In my mind the content of the pages sets the limit. Yahoo for example simply can't choose to do 1024x768 and 24bits of color, because there are too many visitors, having all kinds of different PCs, OSs and browsers. Not even within the next years! Think of all those handheld PC stuff that will be/is released with "real" Webbrowsers - but with resolutions even below 640x480.

But companies like www.fastmultimedia.com (a hard- software developer for professional video cutting) use 1024x768. Their pages are only visited by video-professionals (or wannabes like me) and they have this screen-resolution at least, else videocutting would be nearly impossible.

One more point and then i'm finished
I think stats of screen resolution are senseless. Because I'm using 1600x1200 but I never use my browsers window full screen. That's because most pages use this 100% table stuff and then the 'designed' text blocks are only two lines that span over the whole 1600 pixels - which makes reading quite hard. And even when i'm using a let's say a 1024x768 screen - who says that my browsers "personal toolbar" and similar stuff is hidden, that my OSs taskbar is only standard size and that I'm running it fullscreen? There should be stats of the browsers displaying capabilities, and not of the screen sizes.

These are my 2 cents
Yours
HTD

[Ray Beez]

My own website is visited by CASUAL net users. Average peeps accessing from work. People in non-tech industries. Older people, retired people... the average person in other words.

21% use some form of Netscape browser.
The majority are at 800x600
The majority are at 16bit.

This isn't a BAD thing. I don't know why some of you are freaking out because people aren't at 32bit. The fact is that JPEGs are 24bit. And when viewed at 16bit, the only time it becomes apparent that 16bit is inferior is with very smooth color gradients. The work-around to this is to load your images into PAINT SHOP PRO and reduce the colors to 16bit WITH DIFFUSION. (Then resave as a 16bit TGA file). It helps alot, and I use PSP for this because Photoshop doesn't have such a feature. Mac peeps I guess are f***ed, unless there's a package out there with that same color reduction feature.

Next, 800x600 is low, but the reason people stick to it is because the average system out there comes with a small cheap monitor. I used to have a 15" that I could not use 1024x768 on because text appeared slightly blurred, and a few hours of computer use killed my eyes. I've heard similar complaints from OLDER PEOPLE, especially those with glasses (especially bifocals). I was visiting my mom (she's 48) and set her res up because her system could easily handle it. She however, could not.

The problem is that designers are primarily young people with good eyesight and the latest in technology and they just can't think beyond their own noses.

1600 resolution?! Try that on a 15" monitor and see how you like it.

As for 256 colors, thankfully that is history.

-RB