Bigger screens, more room for trash?
Category: Design...
Posted Wednesday, August 20, 2003 at 01:38 PM [GMT-6]

Websurfers are using increasingly higher screen resolutions, according to this report from StatMarket:

As of August 4, 2003, nearly 58 percent of Web users had a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 or higher, compared to only 34 percent in January of 2000.

The trend is important because it enables Web developers to build more effective sites, with more content on the page, according to Geoff Johnston, vice president of product marketing for StatMarket (www.statmarket.com), a leading source of data on global Internet users trends.

While I applaud the move to higher screen resolutions, I'm not so quick to jump to the conclusion that it automatically leads to better websites. Cramming more content onto a page is not a step in the right direction, if you ask me. If anything, the higher resolution should be used to provide more "white space" in layouts, making sites less intimidating to visitors and easier to figure out.

And, pity the poor fool whose budget or hardware won't let him step up from his ancient 640x480 monitor. If he's tired of horizontal scrolling now...well, just wait!

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Last time I checked, about 20% of all websurfers don't scroll. At all. If it is "below the fold" on a webpage they visit, they don't see it.

That's a pretty damning indictment of the average intelligence on the internet (which is already above the general average) but I haven't heard about any movement in that statistic.

Posted by: Phelps at August 20, 2003 02:29 PM
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