800×600 is the new 640×480
Thanks to technology and the rapidly declining prices of high quality monitors, I am at the point where I am almost prepared to not care so much about designing for 800×600 any more.
In 1999, you seriously had to develop everything to still work in 640×480 as there were still lots of people using it. Anyone into computers and the internet was already using 1024×768 since 1996-1997 onwards. But you can’t write web sites for the tech-savvy though, you have to cater for all users, especially those not interested in technology, as much as reasonably practicable.
Half of the people still running 800×600 now days do so because they have trouble reading smaller fonts in the larger resolutions. However, they should be using the enlarged fonts and accessibility features of their operating systems to combat this, not stifling the screen resolution.
The other half are the ones who haven’t upgraded their computer since 1996. Unfortunately, computers are technology, and technology evolves. I think after 10 years, with the price of computers now, you have no excuse to be still running 800×600. Its technological irresponsibility. Its like chosing to drive a thirsty V8 Holden Commodore and complaining about Petrol prices at the same time. Its your choice. If you choose to run 800×600, many web sites will force you to deal with horizontal scroll bars.
There are also of course, the internet enabled mobile phones and palm pilots which run small resolutions due to physical limitations and readability. Telstra’s i-mode system relies upon cut down versions of web sites written in CHTML (Compact HTML). However, many more sophisticated mobile devices simply access the “normal” internet, i.e. the full quality, full size versions of web sites. So for this growing number of devices its a bad idea to disregard resolutions like 800×600.
So where does this leave you?
Its just a fact of life, that web sites are becoming more and more loaded with useful information - the internet is exploding. So I think you can’t get away from pages on average becoming busier and requiring larger screen sizes. However, a really popular solution is starting to appear all over the place, and I think its the way to go. This solution is also best suited to 3 column layouts. Usability tests have confirmed that the right-most column in 3 column layouts attracts slightly less attention that the left and center columns. So this is usually the column where you will place either advertising or less critical information. So you design the site so that the first two columns show up perfectly in 800×600, with a horizontal scroll bar providing access to the third column. But the third column is really an optional extra, so you design the site so that you don’t mind so much if the 800×600 users don’t see it. Its most important that you are giving them two entire columns of your crucial content - you can’t always have your cake and eat it too. Then of course, all 3 columns show up perfectly in resolutions of 1024×768 and above. I love it, and I think it works great.
If users refuse to upgrade from 800×600 or they have physically compact mobile devices, then its not a big ask to scroll to the right a little to see the “not so important” column. Most of them won’t bother and will happily use the main area of your site.
Now, an example of a prominent site that has implemented this approach. Download the awesome NILS toolbar for web developers, select the option to resize your browser size to emulate 800×600 and then check out www.news.com.au. Note that line neatly separates the critical content from the optional stuff and its spot on in 800×600. The browsing experience for the user is still excellent. Its a good all round compromise that makes everyone happy.
Tags: Web development