Viewable in 800x600... Sorta.

[pulphero]

All this designer babble adds up to the same designer babble from a few years ago: that babble involved the necessity of designing for 640 and not even thinking of moving up to 800 because one of Genghis Khan's descendants in Ulan Bator might still have a mysterious metal box from the sack of Samarkand and not be able to view the site without scrolling.

What matters to me is that many of the biggest sites on the Web, including Yahoo, MySpace, and others, have abandoned 800 and moved up to 1024. Despite this 'improvement', these sites still draw untold millions of visitors.

The trend will continue. Many stragglers will move themselves up to 1024 simply because their favorite sites have begun designing for it.

Should you degrade the Web experience for the 90% of people able to enjoy 1024, or should you preserve the Web experience for the 10% who need 800 either because they're stubborn or they're unable to afford the upgrade?

Since there's no right answer to that question, it's something everyone will have to answer for themselves, without worrying about taking the 'wrong' position (there isn't one) or excluding a subset of the population from their sites (how many people are excluded from all sites because they can't afford a PC and an Internet connection in the first place?).

[asphere]

that's not a good moral to go by. wouldn't you want your visitors to WANT to come to your site? not be FORCED? many of the people that use that site didn't want to come to that site, and didn't even like it when they started using it, but only came because their friends asked them to join. in addition, i kno a ton of people that create multiple myspace accounts just to get friends so they can advertise their website by posting bulletins. the fact that there are not REALLY 80 million users, and that many people that use it don't really WANT to use it makes myspace a bad example to follow.

i give one vote for liquid layouts, as that seems like the best way to go.

Even if it's 40 million users, whatever. The fact is they are still the number 1 or 2 site on the Internet for traffic. These numbers are hard facts, not some anecdotal account of a guy on a messageboard who doesn't like to maximize his browser or what not. That says something about the "importance" of 800x600 if the top site on the Internet is not 800x600 friendly.

People are forced to used Myspace? No one is forced to use it. There are alternatives all over the place such as Friendster (also doesn't support 800x600) and Facebook. If Myspace was that annoying, people would flock in droves to one of the other sites. Besides, Like all sites, Myspace had to start small. There was a time before "everyone is on Myspace" and people still decided to use it.

[Mittineague]

who need 800 either because they're stubborn or they're unable to afford the upgrade?

You forgot "or need to use 800 or less to see and use the site".

[pulphero]

You forgot "or need to use 800 or less to see and use the site".

I'm not sure I quite follow the 'need to use' part, but you're referring to people with disabilities, maybe?

Again, the question isn't accessibility, it's business, as in appealing to the greatest number of people and giving them the greatest possible experience.

Will that leave some folks out in the cold? Sure. But the publishing industry doesn't make each and every book 'blind-friendly' by offering it in both text and Braille. I'm not sure why the Web industry should do it any differently.

Web publishers should certainly try to make Web pages as accessible as possible, right up to the point where the viewing experience begins to degrade for the vast majority of people who don't need special handling.

People keep using Yahoo and MySpace even though they might not like 1024 because those sites are indispensable for them. I'd rather focus on making a site indispensable for everyone but inaccessible for some than making it accessible for everyone but dispensable for most.

Just sharing my opinion - I'm not trying to change anyone else's opinion, since the 'right' answer really does depend on one's own purpose, design goals, audience, etc.

[Anything]

Some peoples eyes require 800 x 600, or even 640 x 480 resolution, even if their technology allows higher.

If your website is unfriendly to smaller screen sizes, your stats may reflect that because people who find your site hard to use may not come back.

P.S. Can you afford to lose 10% of your customers?

Can you afford not to give the best browsing experience to the 90%?

I think worying about keeping your 90% is much more important.

Liquid designs that just widen the current content are not the best answer (sometimes they are but not always). Users get frustrated when paragraphs are really wide, its not how the majority of people like to read. The content itself needs to change on 800x600 vs larger resolutions.

A good solution is to offer a 2nd version that is more narrow and rearranges the content... like the new yahoo homepage (you can make it wider or more narrow) do people consider the new yahoo homepage liquid?

[Mittineague]

Fluid content is only part of good design. The Yahoo page uses

var nScreenWidth=(screen && typeof(screen.availWidth)==='number')?screen.availWidth:false;
var bNarrow=(nScreenWidth?(nScreenWidth<1024?1:0):-1);
if(bNarrow!=-1){_yc.set("FPS",(bNarrow?"ds":"dl"),400*3600000,'',location.hostname);}

and lots of CSS to maintain usability. Sure, not everyone can afford a team of workers, and it's a lot easier to rationalize poor design, but good design that looks good and is usable no matter what the viewport size/shape is not impossible.

[M. Johansson]

Fluid content is only part of good design. The Yahoo page uses

var nScreenWidth=(screen && typeof(screen.availWidth)==='number')?screen.availWidth:false;
var bNarrow=(nScreenWidth?(nScreenWidth<1024?1:0):-1);
if(bNarrow!=-1){_yc.set("FPS",(bNarrow?"ds":"dl"),400*3600000,'',location.hostname);}

and lots of CSS to maintain usability. Sure, not everyone can afford a team of workers, and it's a lot easier to rationalize poor design, but good design that looks good and is usable no matter what the viewport size/shape is not impossible.

Essentially, they remove the left sidebar if you have less than 1024.

[simonpointer]

Wow, I can't beleive this threat is still going on, and everyone is still making such a meal about it. It's pretty simple:

In most western countries there are laws about accessibility for physical premises, access to goods and services and that includes information on the web. (Oh and actually you have equally tough laws and regulations in the US for many business sectors and I sure wouldn't want to be sued there!)

The law aside achieving accessibility doesn't have to be more difficult or expensive, but is about a little understanding of the needs of a wider group who have a few issues with using the web and computers. One of the major issues is layouts designed for specific resolutions that can't scale.

Many of you are quite right, and as someone said:

the question isn't accessibility, it's business, as in appealing to the greatest number of people and giving them the greatest possible experience.

How right you are, that' exactly it! BUT remember the more accessible you are the more traffic you can drive, and therefore the more commercially viable you will be. So accessibility is commercially sensible.

Will that leave some folks out in the cold? Sure. But the publishing industry doesn't make each and every book 'blind-friendly' by offering it in both text and Braille. I'm not sure why the Web industry should do it any differently.

Actually the publising industry does understand that for them accessible products also means better business, and actually many of them do produce goods in Braille and alternative media like tapes and audible alternatives. Of course today, many can now publish accessible versions on line too!

The point is simply this:

IF YOU WANT TO GET MORE TRAFFIC AND DO THE RIGHT THING BY MORE OF YOUR USERS, THEN MAKE MORE FLEXIBLE LAYOUTS THAT DON'T RELY ON ANY SPECIFIC RESOLUTION.

PS Just cos they're big and have lot's of traffic doesn't make them right (just rich!) and Yahoo does scale very well.

[Blue Sky]

what happens to those that want to print out a copy of the page? Anything larger than 790px and you have to design a copy for a print version. A 790 px wide format or liquid layout saves having to make print versions of all your pages.

[simonpointer]

I never make a print version of the page itself.

If your mark up is nice and clean and all the visual presentation (including layout) is in your CSS, then it's just a question of making a new style sheet for print, switching some rules for print orientation, and switching to the print media.

[Blue Sky]

agreed.

[richard bewley]

My €0.02 as a marketing manager for 2 x ecommerce sites is follow industry standards, and look at the statistics.

In the last 6 months, 9.21% of our vistors view in 800 x 600.

To some on this thread less concerned with this contingent, and in particularly those citing derogatory remarks because of this group's resolution preferences... shame on you. Just because it is less than 10%, doesn't mean that they should be ignored.

In terms of visitors to our site 9.21% = 32,720 visitors unable to view our website without horizontal scrolling - in fact, one-third of the site is cut off completely which contains shopping basket, help, top-ten, and much more.

Why is our website turning away 32,720 visitors?- because the developer 'assumed' no one looks at 800 x 600 any more, and developed on a fastastic 24" + multi-monitor display, which is hardly the norm.