Leaving 800x

Urged on by, among other things, the recent redesign of A List Apart, the crew at shotgunflat has finally built up the courage to start to build real, working, client sites for 1024×768 or better resolution.

I’ve been looking for an excuse for the better part of two years now, but finally the usage stats are there to justify the change. We’ve been tracking visitation stats on three very different sites for a good several weeks now in order to gain an understanding of just how many people are still viewing our work in 800×600 resolution or (gasp) lower.

Here’s the skinny:

Our client site is a unique situation-a large portion of the site visitors are park-ranger types who live in remote areas and still use a dialup connection-and 82% of that audience are at better than 800x.

That said, carefully considering a layout designed for 1024x going forward is now part of our design process. There will still be special circumstances where an 800x layout will still be necessary, but sooner than later, 1024x will be the rule.