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Hundreds of people arrested in global fraud scams, including 96 in Canada
Hundreds of people in the United States, Canada,
South America and Europe have been arrested in connection
with international mass-marketing scams that bilked
nearly three million people of more than $1 billion...
Internet directory opens local business to the world
A free internet directory can open up a world of
customers for local businesses, says Port Hope's
economic development officer. The Port Hope and District Chamber of Commerce and the Municipality of Port Hope have teamed up to support local businesses by helping them establish an expanded Internet presence, says Economic Development Officer, Judy Selvig...
Hearing To Be Held Over .COM Dispute
Coalition for ICANN Transparency announced on Tuesday
that the House Committee on Small Business will
hold a hearing today to discuss the proposed .COM
deal between the Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers and VeriSign...
CTV Beefs Up Online Service
CTV is putting some of its top television programs on the Internet. The network has launched what's being billed as Canada's first multi-channel, on-demand broadband service...
Garage Deploys SolidSpace Services
Web hosting infrastructure provider SolidSpace (solidspace.com) announced on Thursday it is providing remote server monitoring and backup and disaster recovery services for Winston-Salem-based branding firm Garage...
Hostway Offers Podcasting Tool
Web hosting provider Hostway (hostway.com) announced on Wednesday it has released its new business-class podcasting tool. The new product offers customers a new means to market their businesses by broadcasting their own audio recordings, videos and text documents via their Web sites...
Canada's Captain Copyright
The character on the right represents an effort by Access Copyright to cloud the minds of Canadian children and teachers. Specious 'education' programs are now de rigueur around the world for the entertainment and software cartels, and the Captain Copyright figure would be totally ridiculous were it not so alarming...
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06.08.06
Wide Vs. Narrow Design - The Screen Resolution War
 By
Mike Richard
One of the first and most critical decisions web and user interface (UI) designers must face when designing for a fixed screen resolution is whether to design for the classic, narrow screen resolution of 800x600 pixels or the newer, now-more-commonplace resolution of 1024x768 pixels (and above).
The decision is not as simple, nor as trivial as it sounds.
Design too wide (1024x768 pixels and above) and you risk shutting out a portion of your demographic as valuable content and ad space sit out of view to the right of their browser window. Plus, your users will typically see the dreaded horizontal scrollbar!
Design too narrow (800x600 pixels) and you risk wasting valuable screen real estate in the afore-mentioned right-hand side with many users seeing nothing but your lovely page background filling 25% of their brand new 19" (or larger) monitors.
The web is at a crossroads right now. There are still those waiting to make the leap from 800x600 screen resolution to 1024x768 (and above). But with the advent of larger monitors and better graphic cards, that number is dwindling every day. As recent as last year, the majority of users - 80% or more - were running 800x600 screen resolutions. That statistic has largely flipped and now many large scale sites are eschewing the 800x600 spec and designing for the future (i.e. 1024x768):
* www.cnn.com
* www.espn.com
* www.nytimes.com
There are lies, damn lies - and statistics. - Mark Twain
Statistics often fail to prove much, if anything. That said, I've worked for almost a decade within the WWW community. My company's clients span virtually every industry, catering to a broad range of demographics. In looking at our site statistics at hand, roughly 15-25% of our clients users are running 800x600, with the remainder of folks experiencing the web in the larger, 1024x768 (and up) format. Twenty-five percent - a minority, but a sizable minority at that - is certainly nothing to sneeze at. But that number will likely half in the next 6-9 months and continue to decline sharply thereafter.
Of course now you're asking, "How do I know what resolution my users are running?" Fortunately, that information is often right at your finger tips in the form of your own web server logs. Your website administrator or webmaster can you help with this. If you do not have a webmaster per se, or are your own webmaster, ask your website host how to get access to your web logs. One other option is to use an all-purpose tracking script. I love StatCounter.com's offering - the administrative panel provides a wealth of invaluable information that no website owner can do without. Best of all, it's free!
The bottom line is that this decision, as with many design and UI decisions, is largely dependent on your demographic. An older, less computer savvy audience will likely experience the web via the classic 800x600 screen resolution. A younger and/or more affluent demographic will likely prove just the opposite - with newer computers and larger monitors, these folks are almost certainly viewing the web via higher screen resolutions.
About the Author:
Mike Richard is an eight year veteran of sensible web design/development and creative director for a Rhode Island-based tech firm. His keen insight is matched only by his dashing good looks and witty sense of humor. He blogs about life at www.mrichard.net and politics at www.jayseverinhasissues.com.
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