ideal width of a website?

[TechBoyJK]

Assuming you have to make a site that is fixed width, for viewability and browser compatibility, what would be ideal? I know for the longest time it was 800px, but who really uses 800x600 resolution anymore?

Looking at alot of sites, like facebook, cnn.com, etc. they all seem to use right around 950 or 1000 pixels wide.

 

[Ka0t1x]

I think it really depends on what you're doing and who you're aiming at a target audience.

I still think that 800-900 is best for a catch-all.

Although more sites are becoming fluid based and not specific width. You can also use your scripted language to change the CSS.

Edit: took out SASS comment.

 

[theknight571]

For what it's worth... If I'm unsure of the audience (i.e. public consumption) then I usually stick to 800.

If it's for internal use (intranet) then I will go bigger if needed. 🙂

 

[Ken g6]

I see a lot of sites these days that seem to need a minimum of 1024 pixels width.

On the other hand, if you think people will access your site with an old iPhone, you may want to reconsider your design.

You generally want part of your site (like these posts here) that can resize with the browser window. You can also have parts, like that list of forums on the left there, that don't resize. But you don't want too many of those, lest your resizable part get squeezed too small.

 

[Cogman]

Depends on your audience.

If you expect a lot of mobile traffic, smaller and lighter is better. If you expect a lot of desktop users, then 1024 is a good rule of thumb number. If you expect all office users with HD screens, 1920 might be a good width.

It really depends on who your targeted audience is.

Me personally, I think smaller is better almost all the time. Simple designs are often the ones that appeal most to me.

Dynamic sizing would be the best (If IE 5/6/7 were nuked from orbit)

 

[TridenT]

Um. Something that works in less than half of my 1920x1200 monitor including the task bar on the side.

Something I have can have up like this:

 

[bhanson]

Please do not make your website width 800, 1024, or 1920 as others have suggested. First of all, the 1920 suggestion is terrible for an absurd amount of reasons.

Those may be good target computer resolution widths, but you want your actual site a bit smaller to account for the scroll bar. It's crappy to force a horizontal scroll bar when just a few pixels could have eliminated it.

A common size for accommodating 800x600 is a 750px width. Since 800 width is very tiny, websites that are made to be compatible for this resolution don't care about outside whitespace. A common size for 1024x768 is 960px.

Just three years ago you would have alienated 10% of your users by not accommodating 800x600, today that number is less than 1%. Around 20% of people still use 1024x768, so really for a general use website you don't want to go above this.

Even at larger resolutions, wider websites are not always desirable. You can only put around 80 characters per line before readability goes out the window. Even though a lot of people have 1920x1080 monitors now most probably don't want to see a website that wide.

My vote is 960.

ref

 

[Cogman]

Please do not make your website width 800, 1024, or 1920 as others have suggested. First of all, the 1920 suggestion is terrible for an absurd amount of reasons.

Those may be good target computer resolution widths, but you want your actual site a bit smaller to account for the scroll bar. It's crappy to force a horizontal scroll bar when just a few pixels could have eliminated it.

A common size for accommodating 800x600 is a 750px width. Since 800 width is very tiny, websites that are made to be compatible for this resolution don't care about outside whitespace. A common size for 1024x768 is 960px.

Just three years ago you would have alienated 10% of your users by not accommodating 800x600, today that number is less than 1%. Around 20% of people still use 1024x768, so really for a general use website you don't want to go above this.

Even at larger resolutions, wider websites are not always desirable. You can only put around 80 characters per line before readability goes out the window. Even though a lot of people have 1920x1080 monitors now most probably don't want to see a website that wide.

My vote is 960.

ref

Reread the posts and you'll understand that we were talking about the target resolutions and not that actual width of the site. Reread it again and you'll notice when we mention larger sizes, we coupled it with "It depends on your target audience." Reread it again, and you will notice that our advice isn't so far off from your advice. Reread it one more time and you'll notice that the OP didn't ask "How many words should I put on the screen" or "How big should I make my fonts." He was strictly asking "What resolution should I target with a fixed width design."

Please don't call advice terrible before actually reading it for comprehension.

 

[Snapster]

Take it with a pinch of salt but http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp reports 96% of users have 1024x768 or greater on their website.

 

[bhanson]

Reread the posts and you'll understand that we were talking about the target resolutions and not that actual width of the site. Reread it again and you'll notice when we mention larger sizes, we coupled it with "It depends on your target audience." Reread it again, and you will notice that our advice isn't so far off from your advice. Reread it one more time and you'll notice that the OP didn't ask "How many words should I put on the screen" or "How big should I make my fonts." He was strictly asking "What resolution should I target with a fixed width design."

Please don't call advice terrible before actually reading it for comprehension.

Thread title: ideal width of a website?

Thread title is not: ideal minimum target resolution

Re-reading this entire thread shows I have the correct reading comprehension and everyone is still giving terrible advice.

Reread the posts and you'll understand that we were talking about the target resolutions and not that actual width of the site.

He was asking for ideal website width, NOT target resolutions. It is pretty obvious in his OP despite the one mistake (800px), but that is excusable because he's the OP and the intent of the message is still understandable (asking for target width).

Reread it again and you'll notice when we mention larger sizes, we coupled it with "It depends on your target audience."

Please defend making a website 1920px in width. No really, try. You would have to know the exact hardware your target audience has and they would all need greater than 1080P monitors. You would also need some sort of web application that can actually make use of 1920px width in resolution. There's basically a infinitesimally small chance the OP is in a situation where 1920px in width is a good idea.

Reread it again, and you will notice that our advice isn't so far off from your advice.

I read the OP correctly and gave very correct advice to what the OP was actually asking. Most of the other replies (including yours) read the OP incorrectly and gave advice that is far from optimal. That's a pretty big difference.

Reread it one more time and you'll notice that the OP didn't ask "How many words should I put on the screen"

Most websites usually display words and these words will usually be intended to be read. The width of the website typically has a direct correlation with the number of words that will fit. So while the OP didn't explicitly ask how many words should I put on the screen and even if I didn't mention anything about word text length, the answer would still be implicit in the answer because it is fundamental to website design.

He was strictly asking "What resolution should I target with a fixed width design."

No he didn't. It is your reading comprehension that is failing here. He is asking: "What width should I make my website if I have to use a fixed width? because I know that there are standard resolutions and I would like to maintain a reasonable amount of compatibility with them."

[edit]Hell, after re-reading MY original post, I didn't actually call everyone's advice terrible. I explicitly targeted the 1920 suggestion because under either interpretation it is a bad idea. In fact, the overall tone of my post was about as unhostile and impersonal as possible without completely beating around the bush.

 

[Aluvus]

1000px or so is probably about right, for most purposes. People with monitors a lot wider than that (myself included) frequently have their browser taking up much less than the full width of their monitor.

In general, I would say that fluid/liquid layouts with some constraints on the width of the main content area (because extremely wide lines of text are difficult to read) are a superior choice. I point this out because the number of situations where you literally have to use a fixed layout is not actually that large.

 

[sourceninja]

For a fixed width site, I'd say target 1024x768. That is what my company used to do. We are now moving to more fluid layouts that can scale from iphones up to as wide as you feel the need to view the site.

 

[GaryJohnson]

I think people with crappy browsers are likely to also be the ones wih crappy monitors. So if you're targeting people that can't view a fluid layout, then you are or should be targeting people running 800x600.