Upping screen sizes we build to

[leehack]

Anyone considering upping the width of your site to 1280 in the near future. I'm still not a fan of fluid width sites, but think there is some thought needed to moving away from 1024. I don't personally know one person with a 1024 screen nowadays. My concern is the mobile devices and whether they hinder progress in this area. It's been some years since 800 was dropped, it feels pretty close to 1024 being dropped. Anyone got any interesting thoughts/ideas/stats on this subject?

[peblaco]

W3 schools site shows the percentage of display resolution over time.

[leehack]

Cheers pebbles, that is in the region of where i thought it would be, i'd have guessed at 80-85% off the top of my head, so it seems to be getting close. The question is when is the switch sensible to make, for me i'd say when 9/10 users on your site have one size or above, you need to start catering for them, what's your thoughts?

[Steve G Griggs]

Designing for 1280 px screens

I will be hanging on to 1024 for a while yet, but trends are going towards widescreen & generally higher resolution.
Fluid page design, well it really depends on the site, but I much prefer fixed width.
You need a good proportion of users on 1280px to go up to that size, most folks hate to have to scroll horizontally---me included!

[leehack]

What do you class as a good proportion? it's at 80% (8 in 10 is pretty high) and that's probably in real numbers more like 85 as a fair few percent of less than 1280 screen users are not your captive audience.

[peblaco]

I thought I'd check my own site stats to see how it stacked up and it's the same at about 20% of users viewing with 1024. 800 was only phased out when that got down to 5%? so I'd say it will probably be the same for the next level and going by the rate of decrease that might not be for another year, year and half?. I prefer fixed width too for what its worth, for consistency across all browsers. I use a widescreen and many 100% width sites don't have enough fluid central content so there's just big gaps of space all over the place.

[Steve G Griggs]

85-90% I would go a little longer, maybe another year...time to start work on new 1280px page layouts maybe?

[leehack]

I thought I'd check my own site stats to see how it stacked up and it's the same at about 20% of users viewing with 1024. 800 was only phased out when that got down to 5%? so I'd say it will probably be the same for the next level and going by the rate of decrease that might not be for another year, year and half?. I prefer fixed width too for what its worth, for consistency across all browsers. I use a widescreen and many 100% width sites don't have enough fluid central content so there's just big gaps of space all over the place.

I agree with all you say about fluid layouts, exactly why i do not like them. I disagree on 5% of users being the trigger to jump to 1024 though, i think it was well before that. I can recall a dolls house seller claiming 800 was the way to go cos he had 12% of users on 800 and that was at least 2 years after we'd all left 800 way behind. I'd say 15% was more like the switch over period.

If 85% of my users have been out and bought a bigger screen, i want a site to cater for 85 out of 100 of them. For me at about 85%, i will be looking to make the switch on ecommerce sites.

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

The stats for my site since Jan 1st 2010 in Google Analytcis are showing 29% of users with resolutions fo less than 1280 (this includes 1.3% with 800 and 1.3% with 320)

[Mike Hughes]

There ought to be a fairly simple relationship between the two to make the decision.

i.e. if the improvment for the people with the larger screen size is greater than the worsening for those with smaller screens, then make the change.

For example, suppose the design for the larger screen size is going to work (convert / increase sales) 10% better for those who can see it but cause 50% of those who can't to go elsewhere:

Then at 85% of visitors with the larger screen size, the gain from them is 8.5% (85% x 10%) against a loss of 7.5% (15% x 50%) so the site should perform better by making the switch.

In this case the crossover point would be where:

0.1 x n = 0.5 (1-n)
=> n = 5(1-n)
=> n = 5 -5n
=> 6n = 5
=> n = 5/6 = 83%

which is very close to Lee's 85% figure.

you can easily run the numbers with different assumptions.

Mike

[Rich Brady]

I think it's fair to say the 1/4 of users are still using the smaller resolution , so I wont be jumping ship yet.

What's interesting is that the screen resolution stats for Denbigh Army Surplus roughly equates to the % revenue too.

So it would be stupid of me to recommend they design their site for larger screens at the moment.

This metric would have to be consider before changing anything surely?

[Mike Hughes]

What's interesting is that the screen resolution stats for Denbigh Army Surplus roughly equates to the % revenue too.

Not sure what you're saying.

Are you saying

75% of visitors have 1280 screens and are 75% of sales ?

in other words, the conversion / sales rate is independent of screen size?

Mike

[leehack]

That's an excellent way of looking at it Mike, thanks for that. In my head if you can't make an argument for it at 85%, then i don't think you can until it is barely none with screen sizes less than 1280. This leads me into thinking that I will offer the chance to go 1280 much sooner than many people think they will. Your formula would enhance that thought. I was an early jumper to 1024 though and I guess there will always be some people that start the ball rolling.

I spoke about it for the first time with a client yesterday and he was surprisingly accomodating to the idea, although expressed concern about mobile users. As a designer with the amount of info to relay a 3 column layout is a pretty much certain decision nowadays, few buck that trend, but a 2 column layout offers so much more in the product area, this is what drives my thoughts especially because of how successful imagery and the various offerings in that area are transforming experiences online.

I want the space i have in the product area on here - http://www.dogbedstore.co.uk/acatalo...l-dog-bed.html - available to me to use on a 3 column layout like this - http://www.atlanticshopping.co.uk/ac...bar-stool.html - only moving to 1280 will give that.

Perhaps, it can be cleverly done so that the end of the second column finishes at 1024, so 1024 users see left and central column, anyone else sees an extra right hand column. It's true that some key info is in here, but maybe that is a happy medium during the transition and could alleviate some of the disgruntled/unhappy users.

[Rich Brady]

It does seem to be in the case of this client.

[Rich Brady]

The other consideration you will have, rightly or wrongly, is the size of screen your client uses.

I know for a fact that if you built a site for 1280 and above and they have a smaller screen. Regardless of what the stats say they will want it to look perfect on there aging computer. LOL