My New Year’s Resolution: 1024×768

Screen Resolutions

And it might be yours too!

It’s worth taking a look at your analytics “Screen Resolutions” report from time to time. The last time I heard someone quote a statistic on how many people used 800×600 resolution the number given was 40%. I did some checking, and while some of our web sites had numbers near 40%, many sites were much lower. Some sites had numbers as low as 5 to 10%.

(I believe that these numbers will drop even further, now that some of the 800×600 crowd have received new computers for Christmas.)

While there’s no absolute rule on when to drop support for 800×600 browsers, it’s probably a safe bet once the traffic is under 5%~6%. If you have an high-traffic web site, and 5% is still a large number of visitors, it may make sense to stay compatible for a while longer.

For the most part, fixed-width sites can now enjoy some extra screen real-estate by making 1024 the new “minimum width.”

Happy New Year!