Web Development - Misc. - Design for the Smallest Screen Size

It is very easy when designing websites to design for the best systems available - you know, 17 inch + monitors with at least 1024X768 resolution with true-color. My advice is to strongly avoid designing just for such systems. Surprisingly to those who have the money to buy the latest and greatest technology, most people do not have 17 inch monitors - most have 13 or 14 inch. Even more amazingly to some, those who use big-screen monitors do not necessarily have their resolution set to 1024X768. Some use 800X600, and a few still use 640X480. Take out the pixels used by the browser's window border, a vertical scrollbar, and possibly a taskbar on the right side of the screen (such as that of Microsoft Office (c), and you have maybe 550 or so pixels visible on some peoples' screens.

Note that I'm modifyng this in 2001. According to latest web usage surveys, a large majority of users now have their screens set to at least 800x600. So it may be safe to design for these resolutions. However, you should still avoid 1024x768.

You need to plan for this limited horizontal resolution when designing websites, else people with small resolutions will see a horizontal scrollbar. If the case studies are correct and most (or many) web users do not use the vertical scrollbar, imagine how few people use the horizontal scrollbar! The amount is just about nil percentage-wise. Even those who understand what the horizontal scrollbar means may find such websites very unprofessional.

Yes, designing for such a small resolution is challenging, but it is worth the trouble. If you can't design specifically for such users, at least make sure to test your websites with 640X480 resolution. If you are using Win95 with QuickRes(c) or WinNT 4.0, you should be able to change your resolution on the fly to simulate what most people see when browsing the web.