Building new sites; what screen resolution to aim for?
 

The last time I built a site it was aimed for 1000 px wide displaying maximum and based on tables. I'm now setting up new sites but won't do the designing myself but before hiring a designer I want to decide what screen resolution to aim for. Are there stats on the web that show the most used screen resolutions?

Also, in your design would you use relatively postioned boxes and objects so that your site is "flexible" and display ok on various display resolutions, even though you will have less control of what your site is going to be displayed like?

OR, would you design a site for large home display with high resolution (mine's 1680 x 1050), and make a version for smaller resolution to which people with laptops can go, and a third one for mobile phones?

Zuzana I hope you'll jump in because I really like your designs and am considering hiring you, but most of your pages have the wide center positioned band design with blank space or a tiled background image on the left and the right, but I want to fill the whole screen, from the left edge of the display to the right edge.

Bump 4 poo...

This is from my tube:
hope it helps.:thumbsup

Use the facebook, youtube standard ... 1000 px :)

I usually design for 1000px as well. Good luck. :thumbsup

The site should look similar on all browsers using css, so long as the code you are using is supported. For mobile you make a different version of the site and put some code in that checks for the mobile browser and redirects it.

and

for example.

Good luck

Stop reading 'The Long Walk' and check your email... :winkwink:

I almost always go for 1000 wide.

1000px sounds good, but even then I stay away from div relative position tags.

If you're making .XXX sites I would suggest 2560 x 1600

.

1000px in the day of cell phones? Why not something that looks good at 1000px but can shrink to any size, images and all?

Did the same. I use; table width="100%"
Browser resolution stats I was pullin in off a test site. `

http://i.imgur.com/NWc6W.jpg

Do 1000px. If you must go bigger, 1200px.

Anything smaller will look very outdated in 2 years.

That was the idea behind floating boxes. If the display is too small for putting them next to each other, they will be put below each other but then you really lose any control of what it will look like. Unfortunately browsers don't shrink font size and photo size to fit in window like a photo viewer does. Strange that nobody ever invented that idea for webbrowers.

But then still, shrinking something that looks good in 1000px to a size suitable for a cellphone doesn't make much sense because everything will get too small then, it will look like a stamp. Cell phones really require a seperate, dedicated version of your site.

Thanks for the codes, very helpful. I'll add this to my member download stats already to see what resolutions my members use.

Thanks everybody for the replies.

I had to think about this one for a while, then the penny dropped :1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

Did you do a WAP version? Was it worth it? A Playstation / dumb version? Before that a webtv version, an AOL version? Don't forget the IE, Netscape and "other browser" versions. I would think people who build new versions of their site for every device and browser must get really tired of it. I figure let browser do it's job and display the site properly for that user and device.

Ever looked at your own site from a Blackberry, Ray? Trust me, it looks like shit.

AFAIK most browsers including Playstation and AOL are xml/css compatible. So that isn't an issue anymore.

My images damn sure shrink lol. The text just collapses on itself but that's so you can still read it.

Using CSS, screen resolution is irrlevant.

You have your main content in the middle of the page, and two backgroud images that float left and right. A LOT better than have a 1600px background...

Isn't 950/960px the standard? I guess it's 1000 now.

Send me to any url on which images shrink in FireFox or Internet Explorer when browser window is too small to display the page in full width.

1000 px

975-1000px is about the standard now to design for.

I'm doing fluid designs now, making sure it looks as good on a smartphone as it does on a big monitor. Even the menu is fluid, it's all good as long as you set a min-width value.

Thats what she said!

Obviously there can't be a 'full width'. The full width should be whatever their screen resolution is.

Yeah, I figured there was stuff like this. I'm just a hack and know you can make a page work on 1200 wide or a cell phone.

I asked you for a page on which "images damn sure shrink lol". Still waiting. Are you a designer and can you design pages that work like that? I'll hire you.

Yup, floating boxes, already covered earlier in this thread.

I'm not a designer, I know basic html only. What is your email, I don't share urls on GFY in most cases.

Wow! Fuck Me ! So do I !! :1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

:mad::mad:

Wecurrently have ours ranging from 960px - 1000px, but we just started bumping them up to 1200px.

In my sig, and here: euker at almostthelastpage dot org :)

I can recommend this book: "HTML, XHTML, and CSS All-in-one Desk Reference for Dummies"

It starts with the basics and really covers everything, introduces you to the world of PHP, Java script and AJAX (the future) and has a CDrom with all the software you need. A great book for the cold winter evenings.

Even if you don't want to be a web designer, it's good to read it and get to understand the basics, so that when you hire a web designer, you know what they're talking about.

Please keep the poo out of this thread, scat and poo porn should be illegal and banned anyway :mad:

My sites are all either really simple, use WordPress or I pay someone to do them. I have no interest in learning anything. :1orglaugh

Sending you a url by email.

For naming and shaming and traffic magneting WordPress is great, it saves a lot of time and energy. For anything else... yeah get a designer. I can do some reasonable hand coded web design but I don't have time for it anymore. Look forward to your mail.

Sent already but a few things.

a) I am an affiliate only. I don't need nor do I want paysite style designs.

b) I promote cams and they convert better and have always converted better on simple pages. I started out with profiles on Geocities and have not matched conversions ever since moving. Why? It looked like the girl made the page and little blue text links get clicked more than anything.

c) Even paysites would convert better on a nice, clean white page with images and blue text links. Maybe a small logo but no fancy ass design, no ridiculous template, just content. If your content is good it will look GREAT on a white, neatly laid out page. White contrasts really great with shit btw, scat sites should do wonderful. :) There is a reason almost all high trafficked sites stick to this formula. Facebook / MySpace / Google and many others know that a clean simple design is more professional than a $1500 flashy tour. I have no idea who started the trend of fancy ass paysite designs but I'm glad because it allows me to convert better than most by doing my own thing.

Cheers

That's an interesting view Stock, I never used white pages and should give it a try. I feel though that everybody tends to copy the Facebook / MySpace / Google design and due to that sites more and more start to look alike and now that WP is getting so popular it only gets worse. I really like it when I get on a site that looks totally different and gives me a "wow" sensation. And that's getting really rare!

950-1000px, I have seen some really cool sizes that match the design which is really appealing.

I know how to make images shrink based on window size. :winkwink:

He sent me an url to a site with shrinking images and it's java script and it's really cool...