Website dimensions

[Josh]

Dimensions may not be the right word but most of my non-wp sites are designed to look well on older monitors that have an 800x600 - 1024X768 resolution. After looking at my web site on several other computers that have newer 20+ inch monitors I've noticed that they are looking quite small. Are websites that have a 800px width somewhat out of date since so many people these days have these high resolution flat screen monitors? I'm probably wording this all wrong but I'm basically just wondering what the safest website width these days? My sites typically cover the screen in 800x600, look perfect in 1024/768 and look extremely small in anything higher. I found this chart at w3schools and it is not encouraging:

Date Higher 1024x768 800x600
2010 76% 20% 1%
2009 57% 36% 4%
2008 38% 48% 8%

[Tom]

I usually develop 900px, 960px or 1000px width sites. Not sure what the ideal width is though, I would imagine somewhere around there.

[jdwanchalk]

I am familiar with your general template and I believe that you use DW, if I am off in this regard then you can ignore what I am about to say.

They do tend to be on the small side, but they are not too small. If you widened them a little bit it wouldn't be a bad thing, but as it stands I don't think you have anything to worry about.

[Josh]

Thanks for the info guys. I do indeed use DW (just got CS4, its great!). I'm in the middle of redesign of my Stud site right now so this info is very useful. I'm in for an hour of css hell but I will bump the width up to 960px. That should hold me over til next year or so. Thanks again!

[Matt Geer]

I just redesigned my site and I think I did something like 1024 or 1040 for it. It's odd because I have 22" monitors on my desktop and the site will take up more than the screen, but when you view it from my 15/17" laptops the site only takes up about 2/3s of the whole screen...odd...

I think you can do somewhere between 900 and 1,000 and be ok....I would prefer to go bigger so I can have a wider content area which allows me to have 3-5 sentences in a paragraph and still keep them looking rather small instead of a wall of text.

[Hazo]

960px IMO.

[johnsmith12709]

Is the dimensions given by you was correct?
Thanks....
..........

Dimensions may not be the right word but most of my non-wp sites are designed to look well on older monitors that have an 800x600 - 1024X768 resolution. After looking at my web site on several other computers that have newer 20+ inch monitors I've noticed that they are looking quite small. Are websites that have a 800px width somewhat out of date since so many people these days have these high resolution flat screen monitors? I'm probably wording this all wrong but I'm basically just wondering what the safest website width these days? My sites typically cover the screen in 800x600, look perfect in 1024/768 and look extremely small in anything higher. I found this chart at w3schools and it is not encouraging:

Date Higher 1024x768 800x600
2010 76% 20% 1%
2009 57% 36% 4%
2008 38% 48% 8%

[Squizzel]

I think alot of people who play poker online regularly are more likely than your average demographic to have a big monitor. I think designing for 1200px is pretty much ok.

Id consider anyone using 1024 res to be in the dark ages.

[Squizzel]

i just went through my stats and have just less than 9% of my audience using 1024 or less. My website is designed for 1200 width browsers and measures just under 1100 in width.

I have 4 top resolutions on my site with roughly 12-14% share each these are: 1280x800, 1680x1050, 1920x1200 and 1280x1024.

Whats interesting is i have over 5% of my audience using 2560x1600. awesome.

[sirtiner]

i like to keep my sites somewhere around 900 to 1000px.
If i know im not gonna have that much content i go for around 900px so it still looks like there is text and not just one line of text