User Interface: How big is YOUR screen?

Nothing is more nerve-wrecking than having to scroll on a website. In fact it is a key factor for me to leave a site the instance I arrive.

Avoiding this is obvious to most of us, but hardly anyone knows the majorities screen resolution.

The pie-chart on the left points out a blue, 44,46% big field which indicates 1024×768 pixel resolution. This trend is continuous throughout a significant amount of the websites I follow.

But don’t be prejudiced about your users. An older demographic will most likely tend towards a higher resolution because the appearance of the site will conceivably be bigger. While younger users will most likely tend towards a smaller resolution because of the billions of other applications they will have to monitor aside from the website they are currently reading. Furthermore, we have to think of national issues in reference to visitors from less wealthy countries, who will most likely not have access to high resolution displays.

The ultimate compromise would seemingly consist of creating a variable width template which would take care of these issues once and for all, right? Wrong, because you (or your designers) will experience devastating limitations in terms of creativity and enriching your web site’s content with appropriate imagery. This resulting out of the fact that the images would either be not wide enough for big displays or too small for mobile devices.

The conclusion and only way to be least screwed is to take a fixed width design which is under 1000px of width and to provide barely enough content to make it obsolete to scroll vertically.

Did we forget something? Oh, yes… the constantly growing amount of mobile users. The simplest way would be to create an alternative template or landing page for them with browser recognition.

Now we’ve got pretty much everybody served and happy

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24 Comments

• Website Web Design Los Angeles, LA « Lars Hilse - The Web Tactician October 31, 2008 at 3:48 am

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• 
  DCC November 3, 2008 at 7:55 am

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• 
  Lars Hilse November 4, 2008 at 2:02 am

  @DCC

  You seem more like a bunch of noobs… linking up in blogs is about the oldest trick in the book. What else do you have to offer?
• 
  John November 5, 2008 at 1:09 am

  SocialMedian answers some of your concerns?

  Cheers John
• 
  Goran November 5, 2008 at 2:23 am

  >> An older demographic will most likely tend towards a higher resolution because the appearance of the site will conceivably be bigger. While younger users will most likely tend towards a smaller resolution because of the billions of other applications they will have to monitor aside from the website they are currently reading<<

  I guess that you inadvertently switched terms – older users are going for LOWER resolution, while younger ones tend to go for HIGHER resolution
• 
  Lars Hilse November 5, 2008 at 2:58 am

  @Goran:

  Thanks for your intervention. Yes, definitely – sorry about the confusion
• 
  Jackie November 5, 2008 at 6:25 am

  Great post, Lars. When are you available for a phone conference? I think our company could use your services.

  –
  Jackie
• 
  Tim Smith November 5, 2008 at 7:43 am

  Lars:

  thank you for this post. I have been trying to convince our web team to go into this direction.

  Getting confirmation on this issue from one of the world’s leading web strategists really makes it a lot easier to convey my point to them.

  Thank you from Tim
• 
  TC November 5, 2008 at 10:28 am

  STOP SENDING SPAM !
• 
  Lars Hilse November 5, 2008 at 11:34 am

  @TC

  Stop being an idiot and either remove yourself as described in the CAN-SPAM compliant email. If you need assistance be a nice little boy and ask mommy (send an email) for help, ok?
• 
  James B. November 5, 2008 at 12:17 pm

  I completely agree with Lars, “TC”. There is a link in the email. It shouldn’t be too big of a problem – even for you.

  I recently talked to Lars and you are the only one of over 6000 subscribers being so bloody ridiculous.
• 
  James B. November 5, 2008 at 12:19 pm

  And if you are not up to the challenge Lars is the last one who would deny you assistance.
• 
  Dom November 5, 2008 at 11:52 pm

  Great post as always, Lars. You should speak more and educate more though.
• Lars Hilse November 8, 2008 at 2:40 am

  What to look out for on your website’s user interface: http://tinyurl.com/6o37rw
• Lars Hilse November 28, 2008 at 8:13 pm

  What demographics are visiting your web appearance? Don’t know? You should! http://bit.ly/hisT
• Lars Hilse March 3, 2009 at 5:33 pm

  User Interface: How big is YOUR screen? http://bit.ly/hisT
• Lars Hilse March 12, 2009 at 9:48 pm

  How SCREEN RESOLUTION affect your web campaign! http://bit.ly/hisT
• Lars Hilse May 12, 2009 at 4:12 am

  User Interface: How big is YOUR screen? http://is.gd/nRQN
• Lars Hilse May 12, 2009 at 5:12 am

  User Interface: How big is YOUR screen? http://is.gd/nRQN
• Tess Neale June 5, 2009 at 11:01 am

  Improving the success of your web campaign through a good user interface: http://adjix.com/suk9 (via @lars_hilse)
• ProThemer June 5, 2009 at 11:01 am

  Improving the success of your web campaign through a good user interface: http://adjix.com/suk9 (via @lars_hilse)
• JoomlaJunkie June 5, 2009 at 1:17 pm

  Improving the success of your web campaign through a good user interface: http://adjix.com/suk9 (via @lars_hilse)
• Lars Hilse June 25, 2009 at 10:32 pm

  Improving the success of your web campaign through a good user interface: http://adjix.com/suk9
• Lars Hilse June 25, 2009 at 11:32 pm

  Improving the success of your web campaign through a good user interface: http://adjix.com/suk9

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