Dave Burke - Freelance .NET Developer specializing in Online Communities

A freelance .NET Developer

Screen resolution stats

I was asked to evaluate a marketing email today that consisted of a single image with some contact info.  The image had two problems:  1) It was way huge, weighing in at 426KB, and 2) It was also a wide load:  1060 pixels.  Those two images characteristics guaranteed that the receipt of this unsolicited email by select clients would be greeted with a less than enthusiastic welcome.

The end product was a scaled down image at 780 pixels wide and 47KBs in size.  But to support my claim that the image was far too wide I did a quick google for screen resolution stats.  These are readily available, of course, but I wanted to post them because it isn't one of those things we reference often, while its a definition by which we work every day.  Bottom line is that a 800x600 design will continue to reach the largest audience.

2004

 Higher 1024x768 800x600 640x480 Lower
January 10% 47% 37% 1% 5%

Posted: Apr 14 2004, 06:28 PM by daveburke | with 11 comment(s)
Filed under:

Comments

Anonymous Coward said:

Actually it would seem that based upon these status designing at something lower than 640x480 would reach the largest audience. After all at 800x600 you reach 94%, at 200x200 or something you reach 100%.

Another good question to ask is who are those who are running at 800x600, and who are those running at a lower resolution.
# April 14, 2004 9:01 PM

Dave Burke said:

Anonymous Coward, Good points, all! :-) My theory is that there is a direct relationship between aging and bigger fonts, i.e., decreased screen resolution.
# April 14, 2004 9:07 PM

Jerry Pisk said:

I still don't understand why most developers try to lock their design into a single resolution. Just design the app/web site that it scales to almost any resolution. It's not even that difficult, just look at MSDN which scales, unlike the main Microsoft.com page.

And for those arguing that long lines of text are difficult to read - there's a thing called window that you can size to your own comfortable size. Just let the user pick their own size, don't force your own on them.
# April 14, 2004 9:36 PM

Dave Burke said:

Jerry, I'm a big believer in scalable style guidelines, like MSDN or Amazon, but there are as many sites out there (like MSN or MSNBC, for instance) who value the control which comes with a fixed dimension layout.
# April 14, 2004 9:48 PM

Jeff Berg said:

I feel sorry for the people with Lower than 640x480 resolution. Poor webTV users.

The Jeff
# April 15, 2004 11:41 AM

Dave Burke said:

WebTV!!! So THAT'S who comprises that 5%. Thanks for your comment, Jeff.
# April 15, 2004 12:39 PM

Jerry Pisk said:

I think the lower resolutions are mostly PDAs and phones. Does anybody actually use WebTV?
# April 15, 2004 3:08 PM

Dave Burke said:

Jerry, Yeah, I thought of those after I posted the WebTV comment. You B right. PDAs and phones mostly, no doubt. Thx!
# April 15, 2004 3:18 PM

Julie Lerman said:

Robert Scoble talks about being part of that small group of REALLY high res users: http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2004/04/17.html#a7220
# April 18, 2004 11:14 AM

Richard said:

How about the 5 million games console users (PlayStation, Dreamcast, XBox and PS2)...
# April 30, 2004 3:52 PM

Dave Burke said:

Richard, Mmmm. Good one. I don't know if the "computer stats" included those or not. I'll have to check... Thx!
# April 30, 2004 3:54 PM
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