I recently had occasion to take another look at the screen resolutions of visitors to the websites I monitor. I used Google Analytics to check the percentage of user with 800 x 600 pixel monitors who visited 9 sites during September. While the results weren’t surprising, they did represent a milestone. For the first time ever all of the sites I checked had fewer than ten percent of users viewing the site with an 800 x 600 monitor. Seven of the sites were at 6% or less with the other two hovering around 9%.

So as I said in my August post, I think it’s safe to say that 1024 x 768 is the new 800 x 600. And I’m standing by my prediction that the percentage of users with the smaller monitor will drop to 5% or less for all my sites by the end of the year.

Back in June I mentioned being surprised by the low number of visitors to this site using 800 x 600 pixel monitors. At the time the exact number was zero. Well it’s increased a bit since then. Now a whopping 0.67% of visitors here have the mini-monitors. In spite of that, I think I’ll still feel comfortable ignoring them when I get around to the redesign.

I still find those results a bit startling, so I decided to do a quick survey of a few other sites I manage. Here’s the results:

Percent of users with 800×600 monitors
Website: 2007 to date / for July 2007 (target audience)

SEOrefugee.com: 2.01% / 2.01% (search engine optimizers)

NetDetours.com: 10.31% / 7.07% (general interest)

TOONrefugee.com: 7.34% / 6.08% (general interest with focus on sports, computers, etc.)

Extrapolating (unscientifically) I’d guess that most sites have already reached the magic 10% level where it suddenly seems OK to ignore the resolution-challenged in their audience. And I wouldn’t rule out that most of them will be at the 5% level by the end of the year.

To help confirm my conclusions, I check five other sites whose information I can only share in a general manner. The highest concentration of the smaller monitors was 13%. Another site was right at the magic 10% level. A third was at 7% and the other two were below 5%.

So it looks like 1024 x 768 is the new 800 x 600.

It makes me feel old, I remember when 800 x 600 was the new 640 x 480.

While putting this site together, my son and I engaged in an argument about the ideal width of web pages.

Based upon the standard advice I give my web design students I argued for a 760 pixel width which, even with scroll bars, can easily be accommodated on an 800 by 600 pixel monitor.

He, on the other hand, argued for a wider design - somewhere in the neighborhood of 960 pixels. The advantages were obvious: we’d have additional design flexibility and be able to move to a three-column design. He also argued that people with small monitors just weren’t worth worrying about (he can be a bit judgmental).
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We admit to being a bit rushed when we went live with this site and we’re still experimenting with its look and feel. This is the direction we’re headed and, once we work the kinks out, we’ll apply it to the rest of the site. In the meantime things might be a bit confusing as you jump into and out of the blog.It’s the kind of design experience I usually like to rant about rather than create.