The majority of internet users still use archaic resolutions
It has become the unsaid consensus over the years that NETMARKETSHARE is an accurate source for up to date data regarding the real world happenings of the internet. For me, the most important information they track is screen resolution. With the flood of new internet connected mobile devices, the revolution that was brought on by netbooks and the never ending wave of new monitor shapes and sizes, you cannot help but feel lost when you are doing your site design mock ups. Do you make your site wide? Do you make it narrow? What can users see vertically when they first open the page? Using a bit of excel kung-fu, I spliced up their resolution statistics and came up with the following table.
| Width | Users Supported | Height | Users Supported |
|---|---|---|---|
| 800 | 96% | 600 | 96% |
| 1024 | 93% | 768 | 89% |
| 1152 | 64% | 800 | 55% |
| 1280 | 61% | 900 | 32% |
| 1366 | 27% | 1024 | 21% |
| 1440 | 21% | 1050 | 11% |
| 1600 | 12% | 1080 | 5% |
| 1680 | 10% | 1200 | 3% |
| 1920 | 4% |
As you can see, if you want to hit the majority of the market comfortably, you still have to design for 1024 x 768 resolutions. My general rule of thumb for that resolution is a 960 x 560 viewport design. When you account for scrollbars and an explosion of adware toolbars, that is usually what you have left to work with.