Screen Resolution: What setting do webmasters use?

[Kath]

Originally Posted by Toby

Interesting reading. While my initial thoughts about a much higher percantage of webmasters using higher resolutions appears to be correct there have been a couple of things mentioned that I had not considered. Browsing at less than full screen size, and other programs or utilities occupying portions of the screen.

What this all tells me is that I can design the site for optimum use at 1024x768, but it needs to still be viewable at 800x600 without having a horizontal scroll.

Yep, that's what I've found too. I view @ full screen, always have - and I have mine set to 1024x768. I didn't realize that many webmasters do NOT view @ full screen so they can layer their windows. But when we did some site re-designs awhile ago for our message board, webmaster blog and main dot-com for the magazine, we received a lot of - well, let's just call them "constructively critical" emails and notes from webmasters. I was even told that sites should be designed @ about 750 width to completely rule out "threat" of a sideways scroll - which I guess really pisses off these small-screener folks.

But now these are WEBMASTERS so I wonder if we are designing for surfers, if the resolution needs to be different. I hear a lot of complaints on my surfer sites from people saying that an 800x600 design is "too big" and that they would prefer it be designed for the 1024 majority... just not sure which way to go, and I don't like how the 100% thing messes with your design. I want it to look the way *I* want it to look, you know?

|shocking|