aspect ratios with user in mind

[bitblender]

seems like as good of a place as any to ask, being user related:
what is the latest up to date verdict as far as authoring resolution is concerned? I used to design everything in 640 x 480 then bumped it up to 600 x 800 ( as a general rule). lately i'm seeing more and more sites that occupy 1024 x 768 and similar aspect ratios. it makes sense that over time as monitors get cheaper and machines/connections get faster, more people experience the web on larger screens. any opinions?

[the sherrif]

check out the display resolution section of this page.

personally id only design to over 800x600 if it were for a 'design' orientated site, where the vast majority of users are going to have more than a 800x600 resolution. an example is 2Advanced.

[bitblender]

WOW! Thanks, Mr. T!! I feel just like the kids on the saturday morning Public service announcements! But seriously, that link is a great leap into some statistics I can use. Thank you!!

[aversion]

Also check out http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2004/January/res.php based on 376,171,358 visitors to sites with 'the counter' on.

these are usually crappy kind of sites but they're the kind of sites that 'normal' people visit for recipes, etc and I think they're the more representative stats on the web, the w3schools stats are good but like any site they're based on the visitors to their site, mostly web developers in their case, still the stats are similar.

It's worth noting that thecounter's stats have shown quite a swing to 1024x768 recently, but the standard for a site for general users still has to be 800x600 I think.

[bitblender]

thanks again. you guys rock.