You have two options when it comes to deciding what width to make your website. You can have it expand the whole width of the viewers browser. Or you can have it set at a fixed size. Even if you have your page expanding the whole width of the browser, you’ll have to decide on a minimum width for your display to set to.
Personally, I cater towards a screen size of 1024 x 768. The web page you are viewing now has a fixed width of 900 pixels. Here is a list of widths of what other websites are using:
| Name | Website | Width |
|---|---|---|
| facebook.com | 980px | |
| Yahoo | yahoo.com | 990px |
| MSN | msn.com | 970px |
| New York Times | nytimes.com | 970px |
| Wikipedia | wikipedia.com | 100% |
| Web Krunk | webkrunk.com | 985px |
| WalMart | walmart.com | 720px |
| NFL | nfl.com | 985px |
| Best Buy | bestbuy.com | 790px |
| Apple | apple.com | 985px |
Here are some statistics on screen size usage from w3schools.com
| Date | Higher | 1024×768 | 800×600 | 640×480 | Unknown |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January 2010 | 76% | 20% | 1% | 0% | 3% |
| January 2009 | 57% | 36% | 4% | 0% | 3% |
| January 2008 | 38% | 48% | 8% | 0% | 6% |
| January 2007 | 26% | 54% | 14% | 0% | 6% |
| January 2006 | 17% | 57% | 20% | 0% | 6% |
| January 2005 | 12% | 53% | 30% | 0% | 5% |
| January 2004 | 10% | 47% | 37% | 1% | 5% |
| January 2003 | 6% | 40% | 47% | 2% | 5% |
| January 2002 | 6% | 34% | 52% | 3% | 5% |
| January 2001 | 5% | 29% | 55% | 6% | 5% |
| January 2000 | 4% | 25% | 56% | 11% | 4% |
More specific screen resolution statistics from w3schools.com.
| January 2010 | |
|---|---|
| Resolution | % of Total |
| 1280×1024 | 18.2 % |
| 1280×800 | 17.3 % |
| 1440×900 | 10.5 % |
| 1680×1050 | 10.0 % |
| 1920×1200 | 4.6 % |
| 1366×768 | 3.6 % |
| 1920×1080 | 2.3 % |
| 1152×864 | 2.1 % |
| 1600×1200 | 1.4 % |
| 1280×768 | 1.2 % |
| Other | 4.8 % |
WOW. Super interesting stuff. I will keep this in mind for my next project. Thanks for the stats!
Comment by Angie Wennerlind — April 9, 2010 @ 7:33 pm
Great! I’m glad someone actually put together an analysis of website widths. Everytime I work on a new site, I always try and guess at the “standard” website width of the time. Thanks.
Comment by Eric — April 10, 2010 @ 5:15 pm
Thanks, really useful!
Comment by scrubber — April 11, 2010 @ 7:17 am
but what about mobile devices regarding these stats about screen size?
Comment by Dan — June 18, 2010 @ 7:56 pm
very useful. needed this! thanks!
Comment by web development — June 21, 2010 @ 8:14 pm
Really useful thanks
Comment by Julian — August 16, 2010 @ 6:56 pm