During lunch a couple of weeks ago, I had an interesting discussion with a former colleague about whether the best practices surrounding screen resolutions were on the move again.  He was trying to convince me that 1280×1024 was the new 1024×768. I was listening, but not biting.

If I’ve lost you already, don’t fret.  Let me start from the beginning.  While you might be familiar with what your screen resolution is set at, you might be completely unaware that web and software developers follow resolution statistics very closely so as to layout their application with the best use of space for their most common users.

For years now, the current development standard has been 1024×768.  However, current development standards don’t exactly match what the current resolution standard might be.  For instance, in the early 2000’s resolution statistics were fairly split between 800×600 and 1024×768. Once that percentage did tilt in the favor of the larger resolution, the development standard didn’t.  While 60% of our users might have been at 1024×768, a significant chunk still wasn’t.  So, we build to the lowest common denominator.  Kooky web people like to make everyone happy.

There’s also the idea that as screen resolutions have been getting larger, users are now not maximizing their windows as much.  I certainly find this to be true in my day to day work, but quite honestly, I find myself doing both.  It depends on the site, the content and what I’m doing at the time.

My colleague wasn’t necessarily trying to convince me that the global standard was switching just yet, but he felt that the specific site he was working on had a target audience that only rolled with the nicest of equipment.

The site he was working on was for a commercial real estate agent who was convinced that his users were all blessed with the latest in monitor and laptop technology.  He was assured that the infamous technology fairy delivered R&D equipment direct from Apple and Dell while his clients slept in their plush Manhattan apartments.

My response was simply that while his target audience could very well be sporting the latest and greatest 27” -30” monitor, a 17” MacBook Pro or even projecting his or her deteriorating financial portfolio on a beautiful  82” HD screen, you can’t convince me that he or she didn’t have an iPhone or Blackberry in their pocket.

With the current onslaught of mobile devices, even high end ones, and the increasing netbook craze, I started to ponder whether screen resolutions might actually start trending down instead of up.  While everybody wants technology to be faster, they also want it to be smaller.

In fact, the vast majority of popular netbooks on the market have a max resolution of 1024×600.  And most high dollar mobile devices are boasting about resolutions that are less than half of the old standard of 800×600.

Some mobile devices such as the iPhone allow users to easily zoom in and zoom out, but viewing a site built at 1200px wide on a screen that’s 480px wide leaves a lot to be desired.

Now, the idea of current development standards changing back to 800×600 or even lower is a little naive, but during my initial curiosity, it wasn’t the dumbest thing I’ve ever considered.

This again opens the discussion of options.  There are two front runners in this race.  The first being liquid layout while the second is multiple layouts.  There are obviously pros and cons to each.

The liquid layout requires less complex coding (at least theoretically), and will work in a large variety of standard resolutions [as well as almost anything in between].   A liquid layout simply means that the main content area grows as the browser window grows.  Instead of specifying a fixed width, we use percentages.

This brings me back to how we use a site.  Most people begin to have an issue reading copy on a site that spans over 500px – 550px pixels.  Scientific ratios like number of words per line are fairly well established and show that as lines of copy span wider and wider on a computer monitor, reading slows and retention rates fall because the reader gets fatigued stressing the muscles in the eye and neck.

Another downside is the ability to reliably predict how the content will lay out.  Sites with more complex designs might be readable at all resolutions, but might not look ideal.

The second option is creating multiple layouts depending on the user’s resolution.  For higher resolution monitors, content blocks can be stacked side by side, but while being viewed on mobile devices the same content gets stacked on top of each other.

It’s a usable and visually pleasant solution, but requires JavaScript [which your mobile device might not support] and requires a significant amount of additional time creating multiple designs and style sheets which clients aren’t typically willing to foot the bill on.

So what’s my guess as to which way the tides will be turning?  After sleepless hours of thoughtful consideration, I’m guessing 1024×768 will be the resolution of record for quite a while.

At the same time, while our development standards regarding resolution won’t be changing much, our willingness to entertain ideas of pleasing everyone will continue to grow.  As I said before, us web “developmentologists” strive to please everyone.

We’ll continue to find new ways to display our content in a way that’s usable and stimulating, we just have a larger audience to consider.

David Ruppert
Senior Web Developer
MarketNet.com
@MarketNet

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