Web Page Standard?????

I would like to know either where to find a fact or even your opinions on what the standard is for web page development, 800x600 or 1024x768. I find 800x600 to be out dated and feel that the higher resolution design should be used on the site of my company. New PCs come with the resolution set at 1024x768. Not many will step this down. Most will even increase it for gaming.

Again, looking for a link to maybe a survey, somewhere providing industry standard, etc. Or simply plain opinions.

Thanks to all that respond.

In the server logs I've looked at, I find that typically about 40-50% of users will have their resolution set at 800x600. There are a lot more older pc's out there than new ones. Unless you have a good reason, you shouldn't design a site that will be less than ideal for that number of visitors.

Here's one reference:
http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2004/March/res.php

More on this page:
http://webreference.com/internet/statistics.html

A site designed for 800 x 600 will still look good on a monitor with larger resolution, particularly if you center it.

A site designed for 1024 x 768, however, will most definitely not look good on a monitor that is set at 800 x 600.

Food for thought.

What does it matter what "Everyone says, use THIS resolution"?Don't be lazy!...create a site that is compatable with ALL resolutions and you will be successful in your website ventures.

I think the 800x600 vs 1024x768 question is a bit narrow-minded, actually. :)

People will access your site using portrait-mode displays (ie 600x800 and 768x1024). People with vision difficulties will access your site using 640x480 displays and large fonts. People will access your site using text-only browsers like Lynx. People will access your site from small-screened devices like PDAs and Smartphones (see attached pic - that's VDr at 176x220). You need to make sure it's usable for all of them -- not necessarily pretty, but usable.

If your design relies on pixel measurements so much that you depend on people running a certain resolution, you really need to re-think that design.

I think you need to make them compatible for both
a lot of people still use 15 and 17 inch monitors
and like larger icons
but yes server logs are the best way to tell

one good thing about data base driven sites is that you can let the viewer decide.

I appreciate everyones input. We've found that most visiting our site has a higher resolution than 800x600, yet that is how our pages is coded. It is something like 45% vs. 40%. The other represents even higher resolution than 1024 and involves nothing lower than 800x600.

Our site pulled up in say 1024x768 doesn't look to good and even appears incomplete with all of the white space. Our average age customer is 14-15 years old, so eyesight generally isn't an issue. My web guy generally codes the site to suite our CFO and what he deems acceptable on his on computer. I'm trying to get him to understand what appears okay on his computer, isn't necessarily what we are delivering to the customer. Thus, the reason behind my post. Basically on a fact finding mission to help support my cause.

Again thanks for the replies.

Hi Bill

To see the current web standards take a look at W3C. You will notice in this document that eventhough lots of standards are mentioned, resolution is conspicuous by it's absence.

If you resize the page for the report you will notice that the columns all retain their proportion with each other. As Tuttle says a design relying on pixel measurements really needs a rethink.

However I'm sure that you'll find plenty of important design considerations in that report. They also have a validation service that you can use to check that your code complies with the standards. Good luck. BF