Is there any standard on common website resolution?
We are targeting newer monitors, perhaps at least 1280px wide, but the height may varies, and each browser may have different toolbar heights too.
Is there any sort of standard to this?
This question is related to
browser
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Whatever your target browser size, make sure to include space for browser toolbars, status bars, and scroll bars as above. Internet Explorer (IME) often has over 100px of vertical space in toolbars and status bars. Typically, if I'm shooting for 1024 x 768, I would try to create a design of around 960 - 980px wide and 600px high to be safe. That way you accomodate scrolling if necessary and some nice white space (if the design requires it). I highly recommend YUI grids for instances where you need to target specific sizes:
All of the answers so far talk about desktop monitors, but I'm using stack overflow on my iPhone and I don't think you should exclude any mobile platform by targeting 1024 or 1280 horizontal pixels. Mark up your page so the browser knows what it all means and making it usable will come for free, even on screen readers and other kit you haven't thought of.
Here are statistics of browser display in 2008: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp
About 50% users are still using 1024x768. If you want your site to look nice in high resolutions use flexible layout.
I just took a sampling of screen resolutions from all of the client sites I have access to, this includes more then 20 sites in more then 8 industries here are the results:
alt text http://unkwndesign.com/so/percentScreenResolutions.png
Based on this I would say makes sure it looks good on 1024x768 as that is the majority here by a long shot. Also don't worry about the height as much, however try to avoid making most pages more then 1-2 printed pages at your default font size, most people wont read a page that long, and if a user installs a toolbar that takes up vertical space, my personal preference is that it's their problem, but I don't think it's to big of a deal.
*note the percentage adds up to 100.05% because of rounding.
Try to target 1024 as the minimum width. Try how it looks at 800, but don't bother too much making that work. At 800x600 almost none of the major websites are going to work, so people working at that resolution are going to have problems all the time anyway.
If you're going to go for a liquid layout, make sure that text doesn't get too wide, because when lines are too long, they become hard to read. That's the main reason why most websites have a fixed width.
The guidelines we use, which seem to be fairly widely used and are backed up by the figures that we get from Google Analytics, are to design the site so that it will work on a screen that is 1024 pixels wide and 768 pixels high (1024x768 and 1280x800 are the most common resolutions we see, accounting for at least 70% of all traffic).
This is why you see many sites (this one included) which use a central column approx 1000 pixels wide and with the most important content in the top 500-600 pixels so it's above the fold when being viewed in screens this size.
Using a 1000 pixel wide layout works fairly well on screen sizes of up to about 1680 pixels in width (typically as high as you'll see on laptops, except the large 17" ones) but do start to look a bit silly on 1920 pixel wide ones (high end computers, typically workstations), however these very high resolutions don't account for a large percentage of traffic on the general internet - 2% or less (on the other hand, if you have a specialist audience like this site, the figure with high resolutions may be somewhat higher).
I target the 1024 pixel monitors (but don't use 100% of that space). I've given up on those with 800x600. I'd rather punish the few with outdated hardware by making them scroll if they need to, versus punishing everyone with new equipment by wasting space.
I suppose it depends on your audience, and the nature of you app though.
The guidelines we use, which seem to be fairly widely used and are backed up by the figures that we get from Google Analytics, are to design the site so that it will work on a screen that is 1024 pixels wide and 768 pixels high (1024x768 and 1280x800 are the most common resolutions we see, accounting for at least 70% of all traffic).
This is why you see many sites (this one included) which use a central column approx 1000 pixels wide and with the most important content in the top 500-600 pixels so it's above the fold when being viewed in screens this size.
Using a 1000 pixel wide layout works fairly well on screen sizes of up to about 1680 pixels in width (typically as high as you'll see on laptops, except the large 17" ones) but do start to look a bit silly on 1920 pixel wide ones (high end computers, typically workstations), however these very high resolutions don't account for a large percentage of traffic on the general internet - 2% or less (on the other hand, if you have a specialist audience like this site, the figure with high resolutions may be somewhat higher).
Forcing your user to scroll horizontally is a serious UI transgression. Unless you are specifically building a web site for a population with a known screen size, you are safest ensuring that your design works with screens as small as 800 pixels wide (about 8% of the web surfing population if memory serves me right). It is wise to make it adapt well to larger screens but not at the cost of the folks still surfing at 800x600.
Here's another thing to consider as well: not everyone runs their browser at full screen (I don't). So the idea that if is Ok to design for a specific (and large) "screen size" really doesn't work for a number of reasons.
Update on 12/15/2010: When I first answered this question, 800 pixels was an appropriate answer. However, at this point, I would recommend 1024 pixels wide (or 960 as someone else points out). Technology marches on...
Try to target 1024 as the minimum width. Try how it looks at 800, but don't bother too much making that work. At 800x600 almost none of the major websites are going to work, so people working at that resolution are going to have problems all the time anyway.
If you're going to go for a liquid layout, make sure that text doesn't get too wide, because when lines are too long, they become hard to read. That's the main reason why most websites have a fixed width.
Keep in mind that the higher the resolution, the less likely the internet browser will be maximiced.
And some browsers have lateral bars too.
It depends on what you want to render, but I'd go with a variable width layout that doesn't break at about 800-900 width.
Height is not really a problem.
Forcing your user to scroll horizontally is a serious UI transgression. Unless you are specifically building a web site for a population with a known screen size, you are safest ensuring that your design works with screens as small as 800 pixels wide (about 8% of the web surfing population if memory serves me right). It is wise to make it adapt well to larger screens but not at the cost of the folks still surfing at 800x600.
Here's another thing to consider as well: not everyone runs their browser at full screen (I don't). So the idea that if is Ok to design for a specific (and large) "screen size" really doesn't work for a number of reasons.
Update on 12/15/2010: When I first answered this question, 800 pixels was an appropriate answer. However, at this point, I would recommend 1024 pixels wide (or 960 as someone else points out). Technology marches on...
Ultimately, this is not a matter of standards or best practices for markup, but rather knowing your audience and making sure your website does what you want it to do.
It's more important to consider the width of the browser viewport rather than screen resolution -- you cannot assume that every pixel on a display will be allocated to the browser (and even if it is, you have to subtract browser chrome). If you have access to analytics that report browser width (n.b. browser width, not screen resolution) then pay very close attention.
It's nice to try to accommodate the widest possible range of viewports but there are some limitations. Some challenges can be handled with CSS media types, some can't. Some can be handled with fluid layouts. But fluid layouts cannot work in all situations, depending on the type of information to be displayed, line length, reading comfort, etc. Some fluid layouts don't work in wide displays. Most break when sized below a certain width, etc.
As much as I'd personally like to design for viewports ~960 pixels and up, you can't always do it. So in some cases, it's still safest to design for viewports <=760 pixels or so (800 pixel wide display, maximized) -- though the time we can finally toss this limitation once and for all -- for the desktop at least -- is very fast approaching.
Where conversions are an issue -- and you have a fixed width layout -- you better have a darned good reason for putting anything that the user needs to click in order for the cash register to go "ka-ching" anywhere east of the 760th pixel.
Ditto for the primary navigation.
Finally, test your layout in everything you can get your hands on. Big. Small. Desktop. Handheld. The works. There's no substitute.
Here are statistics of browser display in 2008: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp
About 50% users are still using 1024x768. If you want your site to look nice in high resolutions use flexible layout.
I target the 1024 pixel monitors (but don't use 100% of that space). I've given up on those with 800x600. I'd rather punish the few with outdated hardware by making them scroll if they need to, versus punishing everyone with new equipment by wasting space.
I suppose it depends on your audience, and the nature of you app though.
Bad idea, I believe. The whole point in separating content from layout was to enable your web page to be displayed on any sort of browser.
Putting in artificial limitations such as a minimum screen size will limit your market.
Having said that, I believe every desktop should be able to display 1024x768. But what about the browsers running on iPhones or other screen-challenged devices, or even those that don't use their entire desktop for the browser?
In answer to your specific question, no, I don't believe there is any standard for a minimum or common display area in browsers.
I'd suggest you have a look at media-queries. This is a useful new addition to CSS that really makes so much sense, you'd wonder why this wasn't implemented waaay earlier. Basically it allows you to target browser attributes (such as max and min-widths) directly via CSS and branch your layout code from there. Similar to creating a print stylesheet, you can create your desktop and mobile layouts in parallel in the same file, which kicks ass for development.
It's best not to target any specific resolution, but to adapt easily to many different resolutions.
Keep in mind that the higher the resolution, the less likely the internet browser will be maximiced.
And some browsers have lateral bars too.
It depends on what you want to render, but I'd go with a variable width layout that doesn't break at about 800-900 width.
Height is not really a problem.
Bad idea, I believe. The whole point in separating content from layout was to enable your web page to be displayed on any sort of browser.
Putting in artificial limitations such as a minimum screen size will limit your market.
Having said that, I believe every desktop should be able to display 1024x768. But what about the browsers running on iPhones or other screen-challenged devices, or even those that don't use their entire desktop for the browser?
In answer to your specific question, no, I don't believe there is any standard for a minimum or common display area in browsers.
Whatever your target browser size, make sure to include space for browser toolbars, status bars, and scroll bars as above. Internet Explorer (IME) often has over 100px of vertical space in toolbars and status bars. Typically, if I'm shooting for 1024 x 768, I would try to create a design of around 960 - 980px wide and 600px high to be safe. That way you accomodate scrolling if necessary and some nice white space (if the design requires it). I highly recommend YUI grids for instances where you need to target specific sizes:
Flexible or liquid layouts do restict design a little though, for example if you use background images that have to match the body background image.
I would rather make different css layouts for the site and have them apply depending on the user's resolution, or if that's not possible (have not digged into that yet), make it a choosable option.
I've personally always stuck to max width of 1000px, centered in the middle of the page (via margin left/right: auto).
If you're running at anything less than 1024x768, it's time to upgrade. Seriously. It's almost 2010. You can buy bargain bin lcd monitors with a native res of 1280x1024.
Alright, I see alot of misinformation here. For starters, creating a web page using a certain resolution, say 800x600 for example, makes that page render properly using that resolution only! When that same page is displayed on someone else's laptop, or home PC monitor, the page will be displayed using that screen's current resolution, NOT the resolution you used when designing the page. Don't create web pages for one specific resolution! There are too many different aspect ratios and screen resolutions to expect a "one size fits all" scenario, that with web design does not exist. Here's the solution: Use CSS3 Media Queries to create resolution adaptable code. Here's an example:
@media screen and (max-width: 800px) {
styles
}
@media screen and (max-width: 1024px) {
styles
}
@media screen and (max-width: 1280px) {
styles
}
See, what we just did was specify 3 sets of styles that render at different resolutions. In the case of our example, if a screen's resolution is larger than 800px, the CSS for 1024 will be executed instead. Likewise, if the screen displaying the content was 1224px, the 1280 would be executed since 1224 is larger than 1024. The site I'm working on now functions at all resolutions 800x600 to 1920x1080. Another thing to keep in mind is that not all monitors with the same resolution have the same size screens. You could put 15.4 laptops side by side, while both look the same, both could have drastically different resolutions, since not all pixels are the same size on different LCD screens. So, use media queries, and start creating your website with a laptop screen with high resolution, particularly 1280+. Also, create each media query using a different resolution on your laptop. You could use your resolution settings in Windows to adjust down 800x600 and creating a media query at that res, and then switch to 1024x768 and create another media query at that res. I could go on and on, but I think you guys should get the point.
UPDATE: Here's a link to using media queries that will help explain more, Innovative Web Design for Mobile Devices with Media Queries
That tutorial will show you how to design for all devices. There's also tutorials for Media Queries specifically. I developed the entire site to render on all devices, all screens, and all resolutions using no subdomains, and only CSS! I am still working on support for tablets and smart phones. The site renders perfectly on any laptop, or your 50inch LCD TV, and many pages work perfectly on all mobile devices. If you put all your code on page, then your pages will load lightening fast! Also, be sure to pay attention to discussion in that article about the CSS "background-size: cover;" or "contain" properties, they will make your background graphics fluid and able to render perfectly at all resolutions.
Follow the sites tutorials and you can make a single web page that renders on everything and anything!
I would say that you should only expect users to have a monitor with 800x600 resolution. The Canadian government has standards that list this as one of the requirements. Although that may seem low to somebody with a fancy widescreen monitor, remember that not everybody has a nice monitor. I still know a lot of people running at 1024x768. And it's not at all uncommon to run into someone who's running in 800x600, especially in cheap web cafes while travelling. Also, it's nice to have to make your browser window full screen if you don't want to. You can make the site wider on wider monitors, but don't make the user scroll horizontally. Ever. Another advantage of supporting lower resolutions is that your site will work on mobile phones and Nintendo Wii's a lot easier.
A note on your at least 1280 wide, I would have to say that's way overboard. Most 17 and even my 19 inch non widescreen monitors only support a maximum resolution of 1280x1024. And the 14 inch widescreen laptop I'm typing on right now is only 1280 pixels across. I would say that the largest minimum resolution you should strive for is 1024x768, but 800x600 would be ideal.
sbeam said that 'you always want there to be 65-80 characters per line'. That is not true. Wikipedia, for example, may have 180 characters per line. Or was it meant to be a particular website?
It's best not to target any specific resolution, but to adapt easily to many different resolutions.
Ultimately, this is not a matter of standards or best practices for markup, but rather knowing your audience and making sure your website does what you want it to do.
It's more important to consider the width of the browser viewport rather than screen resolution -- you cannot assume that every pixel on a display will be allocated to the browser (and even if it is, you have to subtract browser chrome). If you have access to analytics that report browser width (n.b. browser width, not screen resolution) then pay very close attention.
It's nice to try to accommodate the widest possible range of viewports but there are some limitations. Some challenges can be handled with CSS media types, some can't. Some can be handled with fluid layouts. But fluid layouts cannot work in all situations, depending on the type of information to be displayed, line length, reading comfort, etc. Some fluid layouts don't work in wide displays. Most break when sized below a certain width, etc.
As much as I'd personally like to design for viewports ~960 pixels and up, you can't always do it. So in some cases, it's still safest to design for viewports <=760 pixels or so (800 pixel wide display, maximized) -- though the time we can finally toss this limitation once and for all -- for the desktop at least -- is very fast approaching.
Where conversions are an issue -- and you have a fixed width layout -- you better have a darned good reason for putting anything that the user needs to click in order for the cash register to go "ka-ching" anywhere east of the 760th pixel.
Ditto for the primary navigation.
Finally, test your layout in everything you can get your hands on. Big. Small. Desktop. Handheld. The works. There's no substitute.
there are actually industry standards for widths (well according to yahoo at least). Their supported widths are 750, 950, 974, 100%
There are advantages of these widths for their predefined grids (column layouts) which work well with standard dimensions for advertisements if you were to include any.
Interesting talk too worth watching.
see YUI Base
I target the 1024 pixel monitors (but don't use 100% of that space). I've given up on those with 800x600. I'd rather punish the few with outdated hardware by making them scroll if they need to, versus punishing everyone with new equipment by wasting space.
I suppose it depends on your audience, and the nature of you app though.
I get questions a lot from designers about not only width but what height to use to 'keep everything above the fold'. Here is one answer I gave recently -
For width, I'm not a designer but I've read that 960px width is the way to go these days, because it lends itself to being divided into columns that look nice, and fits nicely within most displays. If you can, design a liquid layout - but this is not always practical depending on your designer, your CSS skills, the images and the amount of text.
(you always want there to be 65-80 characters per line, with a line-height of about 1.15). This is the optimal column width for text, and it has been proven to be much faster and pleasant to read than very wide or narrow columns)
As far as 'above the fold', I just have to caution against using any such concept on the web. Horizontal scrolling can and should be avoided, but vertical scrolling is something you cannot 100% avoid. All I can tell you is that on a 1024x768 display (at least 95% of users have that or higher) you should be OK with a fixed 600px high block. But there are many different display formats out there, the browser chrome can take up a lot of room, and not everybody maximizes the browser window.
here are some other sites that say more-or-less the same thing - but planning to get absolutely everything 'above the fold' for everyone is tough because then you might only have 400px or so, according to the actual statistics.
And finally a good long article that goes into great detail (I'd post more but SO says I am too noob) - How to design for Browser Sizes - baekdal.com
Here are statistics of browser display in 2008: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp
About 50% users are still using 1024x768. If you want your site to look nice in high resolutions use flexible layout.
I've personally always stuck to max width of 1000px, centered in the middle of the page (via margin left/right: auto).
If you're running at anything less than 1024x768, it's time to upgrade. Seriously. It's almost 2010. You can buy bargain bin lcd monitors with a native res of 1280x1024.
I get questions a lot from designers about not only width but what height to use to 'keep everything above the fold'. Here is one answer I gave recently -
For width, I'm not a designer but I've read that 960px width is the way to go these days, because it lends itself to being divided into columns that look nice, and fits nicely within most displays. If you can, design a liquid layout - but this is not always practical depending on your designer, your CSS skills, the images and the amount of text.
(you always want there to be 65-80 characters per line, with a line-height of about 1.15). This is the optimal column width for text, and it has been proven to be much faster and pleasant to read than very wide or narrow columns)
As far as 'above the fold', I just have to caution against using any such concept on the web. Horizontal scrolling can and should be avoided, but vertical scrolling is something you cannot 100% avoid. All I can tell you is that on a 1024x768 display (at least 95% of users have that or higher) you should be OK with a fixed 600px high block. But there are many different display formats out there, the browser chrome can take up a lot of room, and not everybody maximizes the browser window.
here are some other sites that say more-or-less the same thing - but planning to get absolutely everything 'above the fold' for everyone is tough because then you might only have 400px or so, according to the actual statistics.
And finally a good long article that goes into great detail (I'd post more but SO says I am too noob) - How to design for Browser Sizes - baekdal.com
Here's an awesome tool: Google Labs Browser Size
Although the best width may by 1024 you'll have to adjust height for account for various browser settings (navigation toolbar, bookmark toolbar, status toolbar, etc) and account for taskbar settings. It'll quickly drop the 768 down to around 550.
The guidelines we use, which seem to be fairly widely used and are backed up by the figures that we get from Google Analytics, are to design the site so that it will work on a screen that is 1024 pixels wide and 768 pixels high (1024x768 and 1280x800 are the most common resolutions we see, accounting for at least 70% of all traffic).
This is why you see many sites (this one included) which use a central column approx 1000 pixels wide and with the most important content in the top 500-600 pixels so it's above the fold when being viewed in screens this size.
Using a 1000 pixel wide layout works fairly well on screen sizes of up to about 1680 pixels in width (typically as high as you'll see on laptops, except the large 17" ones) but do start to look a bit silly on 1920 pixel wide ones (high end computers, typically workstations), however these very high resolutions don't account for a large percentage of traffic on the general internet - 2% or less (on the other hand, if you have a specialist audience like this site, the figure with high resolutions may be somewhat higher).
Flexible or liquid layouts do restict design a little though, for example if you use background images that have to match the body background image.
I would rather make different css layouts for the site and have them apply depending on the user's resolution, or if that's not possible (have not digged into that yet), make it a choosable option.
Forcing your user to scroll horizontally is a serious UI transgression. Unless you are specifically building a web site for a population with a known screen size, you are safest ensuring that your design works with screens as small as 800 pixels wide (about 8% of the web surfing population if memory serves me right). It is wise to make it adapt well to larger screens but not at the cost of the folks still surfing at 800x600.
Here's another thing to consider as well: not everyone runs their browser at full screen (I don't). So the idea that if is Ok to design for a specific (and large) "screen size" really doesn't work for a number of reasons.
Update on 12/15/2010: When I first answered this question, 800 pixels was an appropriate answer. However, at this point, I would recommend 1024 pixels wide (or 960 as someone else points out). Technology marches on...
All of the answers so far talk about desktop monitors, but I'm using stack overflow on my iPhone and I don't think you should exclude any mobile platform by targeting 1024 or 1280 horizontal pixels. Mark up your page so the browser knows what it all means and making it usable will come for free, even on screen readers and other kit you haven't thought of.
I target the 1024 pixel monitors (but don't use 100% of that space). I've given up on those with 800x600. I'd rather punish the few with outdated hardware by making them scroll if they need to, versus punishing everyone with new equipment by wasting space.
I suppose it depends on your audience, and the nature of you app though.
there are actually industry standards for widths (well according to yahoo at least). Their supported widths are 750, 950, 974, 100%
There are advantages of these widths for their predefined grids (column layouts) which work well with standard dimensions for advertisements if you were to include any.
Interesting talk too worth watching.
see YUI Base
It's best not to target any specific resolution, but to adapt easily to many different resolutions.
I just took a sampling of screen resolutions from all of the client sites I have access to, this includes more then 20 sites in more then 8 industries here are the results:
alt text http://unkwndesign.com/so/percentScreenResolutions.png
Based on this I would say makes sure it looks good on 1024x768 as that is the majority here by a long shot. Also don't worry about the height as much, however try to avoid making most pages more then 1-2 printed pages at your default font size, most people wont read a page that long, and if a user installs a toolbar that takes up vertical space, my personal preference is that it's their problem, but I don't think it's to big of a deal.
*note the percentage adds up to 100.05% because of rounding.
All of the answers so far talk about desktop monitors, but I'm using stack overflow on my iPhone and I don't think you should exclude any mobile platform by targeting 1024 or 1280 horizontal pixels. Mark up your page so the browser knows what it all means and making it usable will come for free, even on screen readers and other kit you haven't thought of.
I would say that you should only expect users to have a monitor with 800x600 resolution. The Canadian government has standards that list this as one of the requirements. Although that may seem low to somebody with a fancy widescreen monitor, remember that not everybody has a nice monitor. I still know a lot of people running at 1024x768. And it's not at all uncommon to run into someone who's running in 800x600, especially in cheap web cafes while travelling. Also, it's nice to have to make your browser window full screen if you don't want to. You can make the site wider on wider monitors, but don't make the user scroll horizontally. Ever. Another advantage of supporting lower resolutions is that your site will work on mobile phones and Nintendo Wii's a lot easier.
A note on your at least 1280 wide, I would have to say that's way overboard. Most 17 and even my 19 inch non widescreen monitors only support a maximum resolution of 1280x1024. And the 14 inch widescreen laptop I'm typing on right now is only 1280 pixels across. I would say that the largest minimum resolution you should strive for is 1024x768, but 800x600 would be ideal.
I just took a sampling of screen resolutions from all of the client sites I have access to, this includes more then 20 sites in more then 8 industries here are the results:
alt text http://unkwndesign.com/so/percentScreenResolutions.png
Based on this I would say makes sure it looks good on 1024x768 as that is the majority here by a long shot. Also don't worry about the height as much, however try to avoid making most pages more then 1-2 printed pages at your default font size, most people wont read a page that long, and if a user installs a toolbar that takes up vertical space, my personal preference is that it's their problem, but I don't think it's to big of a deal.
*note the percentage adds up to 100.05% because of rounding.
I would say that you should only expect users to have a monitor with 800x600 resolution. The Canadian government has standards that list this as one of the requirements. Although that may seem low to somebody with a fancy widescreen monitor, remember that not everybody has a nice monitor. I still know a lot of people running at 1024x768. And it's not at all uncommon to run into someone who's running in 800x600, especially in cheap web cafes while travelling. Also, it's nice to have to make your browser window full screen if you don't want to. You can make the site wider on wider monitors, but don't make the user scroll horizontally. Ever. Another advantage of supporting lower resolutions is that your site will work on mobile phones and Nintendo Wii's a lot easier.
A note on your at least 1280 wide, I would have to say that's way overboard. Most 17 and even my 19 inch non widescreen monitors only support a maximum resolution of 1280x1024. And the 14 inch widescreen laptop I'm typing on right now is only 1280 pixels across. I would say that the largest minimum resolution you should strive for is 1024x768, but 800x600 would be ideal.
Alright, I see alot of misinformation here. For starters, creating a web page using a certain resolution, say 800x600 for example, makes that page render properly using that resolution only! When that same page is displayed on someone else's laptop, or home PC monitor, the page will be displayed using that screen's current resolution, NOT the resolution you used when designing the page. Don't create web pages for one specific resolution! There are too many different aspect ratios and screen resolutions to expect a "one size fits all" scenario, that with web design does not exist. Here's the solution: Use CSS3 Media Queries to create resolution adaptable code. Here's an example:
@media screen and (max-width: 800px) {
styles
}
@media screen and (max-width: 1024px) {
styles
}
@media screen and (max-width: 1280px) {
styles
}
See, what we just did was specify 3 sets of styles that render at different resolutions. In the case of our example, if a screen's resolution is larger than 800px, the CSS for 1024 will be executed instead. Likewise, if the screen displaying the content was 1224px, the 1280 would be executed since 1224 is larger than 1024. The site I'm working on now functions at all resolutions 800x600 to 1920x1080. Another thing to keep in mind is that not all monitors with the same resolution have the same size screens. You could put 15.4 laptops side by side, while both look the same, both could have drastically different resolutions, since not all pixels are the same size on different LCD screens. So, use media queries, and start creating your website with a laptop screen with high resolution, particularly 1280+. Also, create each media query using a different resolution on your laptop. You could use your resolution settings in Windows to adjust down 800x600 and creating a media query at that res, and then switch to 1024x768 and create another media query at that res. I could go on and on, but I think you guys should get the point.
UPDATE: Here's a link to using media queries that will help explain more, Innovative Web Design for Mobile Devices with Media Queries
That tutorial will show you how to design for all devices. There's also tutorials for Media Queries specifically. I developed the entire site to render on all devices, all screens, and all resolutions using no subdomains, and only CSS! I am still working on support for tablets and smart phones. The site renders perfectly on any laptop, or your 50inch LCD TV, and many pages work perfectly on all mobile devices. If you put all your code on page, then your pages will load lightening fast! Also, be sure to pay attention to discussion in that article about the CSS "background-size: cover;" or "contain" properties, they will make your background graphics fluid and able to render perfectly at all resolutions.
Follow the sites tutorials and you can make a single web page that renders on everything and anything!
Although the best width may by 1024 you'll have to adjust height for account for various browser settings (navigation toolbar, bookmark toolbar, status toolbar, etc) and account for taskbar settings. It'll quickly drop the 768 down to around 550.
I just took a sampling of screen resolutions from all of the client sites I have access to, this includes more then 20 sites in more then 8 industries here are the results:
alt text http://unkwndesign.com/so/percentScreenResolutions.png
Based on this I would say makes sure it looks good on 1024x768 as that is the majority here by a long shot. Also don't worry about the height as much, however try to avoid making most pages more then 1-2 printed pages at your default font size, most people wont read a page that long, and if a user installs a toolbar that takes up vertical space, my personal preference is that it's their problem, but I don't think it's to big of a deal.
*note the percentage adds up to 100.05% because of rounding.
there are actually industry standards for widths (well according to yahoo at least). Their supported widths are 750, 950, 974, 100%
There are advantages of these widths for their predefined grids (column layouts) which work well with standard dimensions for advertisements if you were to include any.
Interesting talk too worth watching.
see YUI Base
Try to target 1024 as the minimum width. Try how it looks at 800, but don't bother too much making that work. At 800x600 almost none of the major websites are going to work, so people working at that resolution are going to have problems all the time anyway.
If you're going to go for a liquid layout, make sure that text doesn't get too wide, because when lines are too long, they become hard to read. That's the main reason why most websites have a fixed width.
Ultimately, this is not a matter of standards or best practices for markup, but rather knowing your audience and making sure your website does what you want it to do.
It's more important to consider the width of the browser viewport rather than screen resolution -- you cannot assume that every pixel on a display will be allocated to the browser (and even if it is, you have to subtract browser chrome). If you have access to analytics that report browser width (n.b. browser width, not screen resolution) then pay very close attention.
It's nice to try to accommodate the widest possible range of viewports but there are some limitations. Some challenges can be handled with CSS media types, some can't. Some can be handled with fluid layouts. But fluid layouts cannot work in all situations, depending on the type of information to be displayed, line length, reading comfort, etc. Some fluid layouts don't work in wide displays. Most break when sized below a certain width, etc.
As much as I'd personally like to design for viewports ~960 pixels and up, you can't always do it. So in some cases, it's still safest to design for viewports <=760 pixels or so (800 pixel wide display, maximized) -- though the time we can finally toss this limitation once and for all -- for the desktop at least -- is very fast approaching.
Where conversions are an issue -- and you have a fixed width layout -- you better have a darned good reason for putting anything that the user needs to click in order for the cash register to go "ka-ching" anywhere east of the 760th pixel.
Ditto for the primary navigation.
Finally, test your layout in everything you can get your hands on. Big. Small. Desktop. Handheld. The works. There's no substitute.
I would say that you should only expect users to have a monitor with 800x600 resolution. The Canadian government has standards that list this as one of the requirements. Although that may seem low to somebody with a fancy widescreen monitor, remember that not everybody has a nice monitor. I still know a lot of people running at 1024x768. And it's not at all uncommon to run into someone who's running in 800x600, especially in cheap web cafes while travelling. Also, it's nice to have to make your browser window full screen if you don't want to. You can make the site wider on wider monitors, but don't make the user scroll horizontally. Ever. Another advantage of supporting lower resolutions is that your site will work on mobile phones and Nintendo Wii's a lot easier.
A note on your at least 1280 wide, I would have to say that's way overboard. Most 17 and even my 19 inch non widescreen monitors only support a maximum resolution of 1280x1024. And the 14 inch widescreen laptop I'm typing on right now is only 1280 pixels across. I would say that the largest minimum resolution you should strive for is 1024x768, but 800x600 would be ideal.
It's best not to target any specific resolution, but to adapt easily to many different resolutions.
Here are statistics of browser display in 2008: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp
About 50% users are still using 1024x768. If you want your site to look nice in high resolutions use flexible layout.
Although the best width may by 1024 you'll have to adjust height for account for various browser settings (navigation toolbar, bookmark toolbar, status toolbar, etc) and account for taskbar settings. It'll quickly drop the 768 down to around 550.
Forcing your user to scroll horizontally is a serious UI transgression. Unless you are specifically building a web site for a population with a known screen size, you are safest ensuring that your design works with screens as small as 800 pixels wide (about 8% of the web surfing population if memory serves me right). It is wise to make it adapt well to larger screens but not at the cost of the folks still surfing at 800x600.
Here's another thing to consider as well: not everyone runs their browser at full screen (I don't). So the idea that if is Ok to design for a specific (and large) "screen size" really doesn't work for a number of reasons.
Update on 12/15/2010: When I first answered this question, 800 pixels was an appropriate answer. However, at this point, I would recommend 1024 pixels wide (or 960 as someone else points out). Technology marches on...
Although the best width may by 1024 you'll have to adjust height for account for various browser settings (navigation toolbar, bookmark toolbar, status toolbar, etc) and account for taskbar settings. It'll quickly drop the 768 down to around 550.
Try to target 1024 as the minimum width. Try how it looks at 800, but don't bother too much making that work. At 800x600 almost none of the major websites are going to work, so people working at that resolution are going to have problems all the time anyway.
If you're going to go for a liquid layout, make sure that text doesn't get too wide, because when lines are too long, they become hard to read. That's the main reason why most websites have a fixed width.
Whatever your target browser size, make sure to include space for browser toolbars, status bars, and scroll bars as above. Internet Explorer (IME) often has over 100px of vertical space in toolbars and status bars. Typically, if I'm shooting for 1024 x 768, I would try to create a design of around 960 - 980px wide and 600px high to be safe. That way you accomodate scrolling if necessary and some nice white space (if the design requires it). I highly recommend YUI grids for instances where you need to target specific sizes:
Here's an awesome tool: Google Labs Browser Size
Bad idea, I believe. The whole point in separating content from layout was to enable your web page to be displayed on any sort of browser.
Putting in artificial limitations such as a minimum screen size will limit your market.
Having said that, I believe every desktop should be able to display 1024x768. But what about the browsers running on iPhones or other screen-challenged devices, or even those that don't use their entire desktop for the browser?
In answer to your specific question, no, I don't believe there is any standard for a minimum or common display area in browsers.
sbeam said that 'you always want there to be 65-80 characters per line'. That is not true. Wikipedia, for example, may have 180 characters per line. Or was it meant to be a particular website?
The guidelines we use, which seem to be fairly widely used and are backed up by the figures that we get from Google Analytics, are to design the site so that it will work on a screen that is 1024 pixels wide and 768 pixels high (1024x768 and 1280x800 are the most common resolutions we see, accounting for at least 70% of all traffic).
This is why you see many sites (this one included) which use a central column approx 1000 pixels wide and with the most important content in the top 500-600 pixels so it's above the fold when being viewed in screens this size.
Using a 1000 pixel wide layout works fairly well on screen sizes of up to about 1680 pixels in width (typically as high as you'll see on laptops, except the large 17" ones) but do start to look a bit silly on 1920 pixel wide ones (high end computers, typically workstations), however these very high resolutions don't account for a large percentage of traffic on the general internet - 2% or less (on the other hand, if you have a specialist audience like this site, the figure with high resolutions may be somewhat higher).
I'd suggest you have a look at media-queries. This is a useful new addition to CSS that really makes so much sense, you'd wonder why this wasn't implemented waaay earlier. Basically it allows you to target browser attributes (such as max and min-widths) directly via CSS and branch your layout code from there. Similar to creating a print stylesheet, you can create your desktop and mobile layouts in parallel in the same file, which kicks ass for development.
Bad idea, I believe. The whole point in separating content from layout was to enable your web page to be displayed on any sort of browser.
Putting in artificial limitations such as a minimum screen size will limit your market.
Having said that, I believe every desktop should be able to display 1024x768. But what about the browsers running on iPhones or other screen-challenged devices, or even those that don't use their entire desktop for the browser?
In answer to your specific question, no, I don't believe there is any standard for a minimum or common display area in browsers.
All of the answers so far talk about desktop monitors, but I'm using stack overflow on my iPhone and I don't think you should exclude any mobile platform by targeting 1024 or 1280 horizontal pixels. Mark up your page so the browser knows what it all means and making it usable will come for free, even on screen readers and other kit you haven't thought of.
Source: Stackoverflow.com