In 1995, 640x480 resolution monitors were about the best you could get without going broke. In 2004, 640x480 resolution made up less than 1% of most Web site traffic People are now using computers with 1024x768 and higher resolutions in greater numbers.
Many Web site design guides recommend designing Web sites for 800x600 resolution, but statistics show less than 10% still use this setting. According to sites that monitor viewers visits, 1024x768 is still the most popular monitor resolution. Anywhere from 40%-65% of visitors use that resolution. That's a lot.
Larger resolutions can be fairly hard to read for many people. A 14-inch flat panel monitor might support 1024x768, but the text is virtually unreadable. Also, many computers sold are set up with lower resolutions by default.
In an informal survey of friends and family (all but 3 use monitors that are 1024x768 resolutions) 4 kept their browsers maximized using the monitors default settings, 1 used 800x600 because they could not read the text, and the rest had their browser window sized smaller than their screen. Now, this isn't a scientific survey, but it does show you that you can not rely on the fact that everyone views the Web the same way. If I were going to design a site for this specific group of people I would use the common size of 1024x768 to design the size, meaning one person would have to scroll horizontally, 4 would see it fill the screen, and the rest would see much more dead space around the site.
There are several things a designer can do to make sure everyone can view a Web site has the designer intended.
Fixed width pages are exactly like they sound. The width is fixed at a specific number and doesn't change no matter how big or small the browser is. This can be good if you need your design to look exactly the same no matter how wide or narrow your readers' browsers are. But this method doesn't take into account your readers. People with browsers narrower than your design will have to scroll horizontally, and people with really wide browsers will have large amounts of empty space on the screen.
Flexible width pages vary in width depending upon how wide the browser window is. This allows you to design pages that focus more on your customers. But the problem with fixed width pages is that they can be difficult to read. If the scan length of a line of text is longer than 10-12 words or shorter than 4-5 words, it can be very difficult to read. This means that readers with large or small browser windows will have trouble.
The best solution for most Web pages is a mix of flexible and fixed widths. This allows your text boxes to be a fixed width for easier reading, while the other divisions on the page can flex in size to accommodate larger and smaller browser widths.
Here are some statistics from 4 different sites:
| Width x Height | Source 1 | Source 2 | Source 3 | My Site |
| 1024x768 | 46% | 36% | 48% | 61% |
| 800x600 | 7% | 3% | 8% | 2% |
Here are 2 great links to help you determine your browser size and set your browser size. I always keep my browser size set at 1024 as the majority of the Web sites I visit look best at that setting.
http://whatsmy.browsersize.com/
http://setmy.browsersize.com/
For Web designers, the above links are great to help you check your work to make sure your design is not too wide, or too narrow!
