Mark Ferree - Open Source Web Development

AKA why I'm still close to 800 by 600

Why is it that with today's monitors we are still making sites at or near 800 by 600? It seems that with a 20 inch Mac I should be making sites that actually fill my screen.

Well the problem isn't a lack of screen resolution. According to some recent figures, a big majority of users have monitors that are set well above 800 by 600 (60% a year ago according to Jacob Nielsen). The problem is the fact that now that we have all of this real estate, we don't maximize our windows anymore.

One reason that some users keep their windows at or near the 800 pixel width is that text is much more readable. Many years before I was born typographers realized that 45 to 75 characters per line is the best for readability. Unfortunately for people reading online, not every site designer is familiar with this concept. Many poorly designed sites grow their lines indefinitley, and forcing your window to 800 pixels wide keeps these sites readable.

Now some of you may ask why I'm preaching 800 by 600 and the page you are currently reading is at 900 pixels. Well I've looked at my stats, and no one has visited my site (expcept on phones) with a resolution below 1024 by 768. And I figure if you are interested in the material, you probably know how to resize your window if necessary. Another feature you may notice is my large text size. This may look huge to a person on 1024, but it is still decently readable at 1680 by 1050 (on my machine). Many older sites optimized for 800 by 600 are virtually unreadable at my current resolution. I know that optimizing for the future may not be the best option, but if you do want to resize my site, everything is done with em's for your shrinking pleasure.

So the take home lesson for today is: choose a resolution that works for your users, and is readable for everyone else.