Designing Web Pages For All Resolutions

There are many important factors to be considered when designing web pages, from browser compatibility, graphic design, optimisation and more, however a big one is designing the web page to work in all screen resolutions. Some people may still be browsing off a small/old monitor (That's not including mobiles). According to this Wikipedia article the lowest standard computer screen resolution is 640 x 480 pixels, however, the percentage of web users using it are insignificant. The next highest resolution is 800 x 600 pixels, which still has a significant amount of users using it so it is a good base to start from.

Depending on your audience, creating websites for the lowest common denominator is beneficial in fostering good word of mouth for your web site. As that Wikipedia article shows, the percentage of Steam users and regular users using each of the different resolutions. For those that don't know, Steam is a platform for delivering computer games, which skews the numbers as computer gamers are far more likely to want higher resolution to play their games with. The percentage of general web users using 800 x 600 is 1.03% and 0.17% for Steam users, so keeping your audience in mind, for a gaming website you could probably get away with using a higher screen resolution as your lowest.

Using a lower screen resolution than a web page was designed for can lead to many layout issues, which as a web designer you don't want to happen. Not only could the layout become broken, but the chances of having to use a horizontal scroll bar are vastly increased, which like discussed in a previous article are a real pain in comparison to vertical scroll bars. Overall screen resolution is just another important aspect of web design and web development and something that web developers shouldn't forget.