Designing Web Sites That Look Good Everywhere

Max Dunn — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 13:25:00 -0700

There are three main issues to consider when designing web sites that will look good to the widest number of visitors: monitor size, OS/browser and colors.

Monitor Size

First, no-one uses 640×480 anymore, so this should not be considered. Next up only about 8% of users have 800×600 displays. The biggest group is 1024×768 which accounts for about 50% of user’s displays. At the 1280×1024, we have about 17% of the users. The rest, about 25% have higher resolution displays.

What this means is that to design for the widest group, web pages should be displayable on a 800×600 display, but can be optimized for best viewing on a 1024×768 display.

Keep in mind though, when thinking about the design is that it is hard to read long lines of text and that narrower web pages are often easier to read. Also, when users scan web pages, they look in an F-shaped pattern: first along the top and then the left side. So having a wide page with a lot of important information on the right side will likely not be effective.

Eschew Obfuscation: Designing Web Sites That Look Good Everywhere

Designing Web Sites That Look Good Everywhere

Monitor Size