This is just an informal survey: 1) What size is your monitor? 2) What resolution is your monitor set to? 3) do you use AOL dial-up for your ISP? 4) do you have broadband? 5) what is your prefered browser? Thanks71 responses total.
Ok, i'll go first. 1) 19" 2) 1152x864 3) no 4) no 5) Mozilla
Comparing sizes is rather gauche, don't you think? 1) 21" 2) 1280x1024 (usually) 3) no 4) yes 5) Firebird / Mozilla My suspicion is that high resolution will correlate *very* well with monitor size, AOL and broadband usage will have a reasonable correlation with monitor size (AOL use decreasing as monitor size increases, broadband use increasing,) and browser use might show some correlation but not a particularly strong one. But of course that's just my guess.
1) 17" 2) I can't remember. 3) no 4) yes 5) Konqueror on Linux, Safari on Mac
1) 19" 2) 1280x1024 3) no 4) yes 5) Konqueror on Linux, Firebird on Windows XP
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1) 19" 2) 1152x864 3) no 4) yes 5) Konqueror, Mozilla, or Opera on OpenBSD; Mozilla or Opera on Win2K; Linux is fighting (actually my boot loader is fighting Linux)
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1) What size is your monitor? 14"
2) What resolution is your monitor set to? 1024x768
3) do you use AOL dial-up for your ISP? no
4) do you have broadband? yes
5) what is your prefered browser? Netscape 4.8
(though it is getting more and more obsolete). I expect to be
switching to Safari within a month, as I migrate to Panther.
1 19 inch
2 800x600 (bad eyes, even with bifocals and reading glasses)
3 no
4 no
5 Internet Explorer (whatever version came with XP pro In January,
plus the windows automatic updates.)
Desktop: 1. 17" (lcd flat panel, so it's equivalent to a 19" CRT) 2. 1280x1024 3. No 4. Yes 5. Mozilla Laptop: 1. 13" lcd 2. 1024x768 3. No 4. Yes 5. Opera for most stuff, Dillo for quick glimpses
1.) 15" 2.) 1280 x 854 3.) No 4.) No 6.) Safari
1) What size is your monitor? 13" (I *think*, I am not sure. It is a laptop. I dont remember what size it is. It looks like it is about 12 or 13") 2) What resolution is your monitor set to? 1024x768 3) do you use AOL dial-up for your ISP? no 4) do you have broadband? no 5) what is your prefered browser? IE 6.0
1) 15" 2) 800x600 (I feel so dorky now) 3) eew, no! 4) no, can't afford 5) IE 6.0
I have two PCs that I use at work. At home, I have a laptop. 1. 15" flat panel and 15" CRT monitor, 14.1 inch TFT XGA Display at home 2. All to 1024x768 3. Not applicable 4. Yes, if ISDN is broadband. 5. Mozilla on the Linux PC and IE 6.0 on Windows.
I'm going to give details of my home PC 1. 19" 2. 1024x768 3. No 4. Yes 6. Opera, but some stuff doesn't work on it, so I use IE 6.0. I've also downloaded Mozilla that I'm trying to get used to, but it makes my web-site look crappy :(
1. 15" 2. 800 X 600 3. No 4. No 5. Lynx
(No, ISDN is not 'broadband'. "Broadband" refers to cable and DSL.)
(Satellite also?)
(IP over satellite? What's the bandwidth? How many bits per second?)
I've heard the bandwidth is pretty good, but the latency is pretty bad.
Satellite gives as much as 2 Mbps downloads. Uplink could be dial-up.
That sounds like "broadband" to me.
I think a couple BRs strapped together coul dbe considered 'broadband'. Answers: 1. 15.2, 17, 17 2. 1024x768, 1600x1200, 1600x1200 3. no 4. yes 5. The latest Mozilla beta
McNally's response works for me too.
1. 16 2. 1023x768 3. No 4. No 5. Netscape
1023?
I'm still tied with McNalley for the biggest ****ing monitor on Grex, with the teeniest text on it. My screen is usually covered with terminal windows, mostly sized to fit 83 lines of 80 columns. At the screen resolutions and font sizes I use, I can have 2 and 2/3 such windows simultaneously visible. As a programmer, this makes me very happy. However, my computer is not otherwise impressive - 600 MHz Athlon running an way old version of Linux. I'm not eager to upgrade. It's quite sufficient for my needs.
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I'm kind of surprised, actually. I'd've guessed that 21" monitors were pretty average these days. But then my expectations are probably hugely biased by the field I'm in -- most of the serious programmers I know prefer 1600x1200 or higher so they can have editor windows, debuggers, program output, shells, and as much other stuff as they can fit all on the screen at the same time..
17" 1024 x 768 NO to AOL NO Broadband confidential
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(I don't think of my ISDN line as 'broadband', even when it brings up the second B channel.) Yeah, I litter my screen with terminal windows, too.
Thanks for the feedback folks.... I heard as a rule of thumb webpages are "suppose" to be designed for 800x600 and that graphics shouldn't be bigger than 640x480. You basically confirmed my suspicion that 800x600 was no longer the standard. I'm actually quite suprised by the numbers. I would have guessed it would have broken down something like this: 640x480 >%01 800x600 %40 1024x768 %55 everything inbetween %13 1200x1600 and greater %2 I'm also suprised at the number of people *not* using MS internet explorer; I thought it would be well over %50 if not closer to +%70 I might go back and tally the numbers in a few days, just for kicks. I realize this doesn't represent a true demographic of the U.S. pop., and probably not even of grex as a whole...but its a good place to start.
1. 17" 2. 1024x768 3. No 4. Yes 5. Opera (WinXP)
1. 19' 2. dont know 3.no 4.yes 5. ie(please dont spam or killl me i am just getting into linux
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1) 17" 2) 1024x768 3) Hell no 4) Yes (Charter cable) 5) Mozilla (Win2K)
In reporting monitor sizes, I think it makes a difference whether you're talking about CRT or LCD. My current 19" LCD monitor has about the same screen area as the 21" CRT that it replaced.
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I think I would still design for 800x600. A page intended for an 800x600 screen is readable on a bigger one, but a page designed for a 1024x768 screen can be a real pain on an 800x600 one. Here's a somewhat surprising statistic: The most common operating system for people visiting the website at work is Windows 98. Windows 2000 and XP are approaching it but have yet to overtake it. ME is *way* less common.
(Oh, and remember that some people, like me, don't maximize their browser window when browsing.)
I think taking a survey on grex, and using that as a standard for the rest of teh world is highly misleading. Grex, by and far, is largely a geek community. Sure there are non-geeks, but most of the people on agora work with computers and are used to multi-tasking on their computers. Hence the higher resolution to accomodate all the different windows. The way computers has spread these days, you find more and more people using them, and the majority aren't geeks. You have people who barely know how to get on teh internet, forget knowing how to change the resolution f their screens. These numbers are getting larger by the day. A lot of people I know still use 800x600. As for browsers, again, grex which has more Unix lovers than MS lovers is not the right place to have a survey on. When I go through the usage statistics of my site, IE seems to be the browser of choice. Mozilla has a tiny percentage of users, comparatively. Again, I'm not saying that teh statistics for my site are generic enough to be used. It just shows that depending on your sample of people, the survey is going to give you different results. As for what resolution to design for, I guess, in part that depends on your site. If the kind of audience you expect is widely people of computer backgrounds, a higher resolution may be appropriate. If it's varied, 800x600 may be appropriate. Most of my site is designed in tables, and I tend to use relative widths so that the whol width of the page is displayed no matter what resolution the user is using or whether he has his browser in a less than maximised state.
I would think that 800x600 would be an appropriate scale for which to
design for the following reasons [all pure speculation on my part]:
At this stage of technology, people who primarily use 800x600 are
not likely to be advanced users, and will less likely be multitasking, so
they'll be more interested in having a browser window take up the whole
screen, or will be less inconvenienced by it if it does.
More advanced users will likely have larger resolutions, and will
not want a full-screen browsing experience, but will want enough screen
real estate dedicated to the browser to be able to appreciate the design
and content experience.
Very few folks browsing the internet on full-size computers at this
point will have screens with smaller than 800x600, and those with smaller
portable devices will expect to have a different sort of experience
anyway.
1) What size is your monitor? 17" at home, 19" at work 2) What resolution is your monitor set to? 1024x768 3) do you use AOL dial-up for your ISP? No 4) do you have broadband? Yes (DSL) 5) what is your prefered browser? IE 6.0
1) 17.2 inch LCD 2)1280 x 1024 3) No. 4) no. 5) IE 6 on windoze, and Konqueror
oh...another thing. I have an ATI card and the resolution settings go from: res. ratio ---------------------- 1024x768 4:3 1152x864 4:3 1280x1024 5:4 (wtf?) 1600x1200 4:3 why isn't the resolution 1280x960 (4:3)? I think a perfect in between size would be 1400x1050.
I've also wondered where 1280x1024 came from. 1280x960 would be more consistent. Support for various resolutions is a driver issue, I think. When I upgraded the video driver for my previous windows box, suddenly 1280x960 was supported in addition to the other resolutions. With XFree86 under Linux, you can set the resolution to virtually anything you want. I've used 1280x960 and also 1400x1050. The main reason that I use 1280x1024 now is that it's the native resolution of my LCD monitor.
The computer I am using at Jim's house has two monitors plugged into it. 99%% of the time I use the 13" TTL amber, 80 columns. To see VGA fonts or graphics I have a color VGA that can go to 1280 resolution but the resolution depends on the software. Arachne goes only to 1024. I have a variety of image viewers and printers. ISP = USOL in Flint. A very procrastinating friend for whom I set up USOL and Opera persists in using AOL because he claims he is too busy to change, despite having to pay them $25/month for inferior service. Dial-in Preferred browser = Lynx. I also have Links, Arachne, Newdeal, Opera (for Linux, 6.03) and on Jim's computer Netscape 4.7. I use Lynx at grex, and Lynx 2.8.5 for DOS, and 2.8.4 for Linux. Opera only if I need javascript. We now own 2 17" monitors found at the curb (Jim fixed them) but they are big and heavy and take up desk space. We have a 15" that goes to 1600 res. I have one of my office computers set up with the 17" so I can view faxes that people turn into pdf or gif files when the print is tiny. Quicker than printing them out.
1. 14.1" laptop screen 2. 1024x768 3. No 4. Yes -- somebody in the building (3 apts on 3rd floor, 5 offices on second) has a wireless router with factory (unsecured) settings. Traceroute gives a verizon ip as the first step to anything, but, when we moved here, verizon told me we couldn't get dsl. 5. Safari As far as webpage design goes, if you're doing it right the viewer's resolution shouldn't make much of a difference--in theory, everything should fluidly resize, so the size of your graphics would be the only issue. In practice, I've long since given up on deisgning for everyone. Since the only thing I'm designing these days is my blog, I make it look decent in Safari and let the rest of the world cope with their browsers' ideosyncracies.
I think it was true that stuff would fluidly resize back when people were still treating HTML as a content description language, instead of a way to get a specific page layout.
I tried out one IE-based browser which did not display part of the menu when used at less than 1024 resolution (such as the help menu). Nor did it work with Win95 at all. The author did not bother testing it on older hardware or software. He sent me a free registration code when I started to report this sort of bug.
Sometimes if the screen is too narrow to display part of the menu bar, there's a little arrow on the right edge you can click to get at the remaining items.
On measureing the real content area on my good computer, I find I get close to 14" on the 17" screen. When I use the old computer to grex, I get all 13" of the !3" monitor.
At work: 17" CRT 1152 x 864 no aol LAN in our office is probably faster than broadband Mozilla 1.4.1 At home: 19" CRT 1280 x 1024 no aol Cable modem from Comcast Mozilla 1.4.1 See the "Browsers Used to Access Google" graph on http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html It looks like the fraction of people using anything other than MSIE is tiny, although I suppose Opera (and other browsers?) may count as MSIE as far as Google's data collection method can tell.
woah!...interesting...
... whew ... 21" (all four) 1024x768 no aol (this is a question????) t-1 newtscrape 4.79-7.1 (dependingon the b0x) ok, i confess - it is cable but NO one else is on this link, speeds are reliably in excess of 1.8 Mb/s, faster tehn t-1.
1. 17" CRT 2. 1024x768 3. no 4. no 5. Konqueror/Opera (Linux), Opera (XP)
17" 1024x768 no yes opera
#1 & 2 from memory; I don't have it in front of me now 1) 15" CRT 2) 1280 x 1024 3) no 4) I have U of Pittsburgh campus ethernet. speeds vary from hundreds-of-bytes per second to occassionally nearly a hundred K. 5) at home i use Opera on Linux. on campus I use Konqueror on Linux; Safari on OS X; and IE on Windows.
30-6-54
(Re #59: 1280x1024 is pretty high resolution for a 15" screen. Doesn't everything look kinda tiny?)
some things are a bit small, but i'm another one of these people who likes to have multiple terminals and such open. I also like very large terminals--- 120x50 or bigger --- so i like having lots of space :) my eyes also aren't too bad, so the size doesn't usually bother me. opera's got one-key text resizing, also, so it's not hard to fix when things *are* too small :)
12", 1280x854, no, yes, mozilla
1280 x 854? (is that the screen size of the 12" Powerbook?)
that's my resolution so says my XF86Config. my macos partition is 1024x768.
Weird. Apple might've tweaked it for some sort of DVD aspect-ratio-related reasons.
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1)17'' 2)1280 x 1024 3)no 4)i am using METU campus ethernet. 5)mostly opera,plus IE.
1. 17" crt 2. 1024x768 3. no 4. no 5. ie6
1: 12.1" iBook; 2:800x600; 3:no; 4:Yes; 5:Safari; Has anyone done a summary of all the responses?
a long time ago I did, but since ya'll are a bunch of geeks, it was skewed and didn't represent the avg population as a whole.
You have several choices: