How can I track and determine resolution of visitors to my site?

[blueridg]

I am looking at AWSTATS for a subdomain and am trying to figure out if there is a way I can track the resolution setting of visitors to my site?

A friend of mine wants me to basically optimize his site for the very few out there that use greater than 1024 X 768 and I am trying to impress on him the stupidity of designing to the minority.:mad:

[Early Out]

I don't know how you would capture the screen resolution - AFAIK, that info isn't captured anywhere now. You'd have to write something into your site to grab it.

However, I would guess that a very large percentage of users are now at settings over 1024x768. The reason is simple. Flat panel monitors of 17" or larger, which are now the norm for new PCs, have a native resolution higher than that, and most users don't change from the native resolution (it often makes things look slightly out of focus). Heck, my 4-year-old Gateway monitor is 1280x1024. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to discover that the "over 1024" crowd is now a majority.

[blueridg]

Grrr. Not what I wanted to hear! LOL Thanks for the info though. I think maybe a 'happy medium' is to give the user the option to change their resolution on the main page, but that seems extreme too.

[GTOOOOOH]

I design assuming 1024x768 and larger. Something you have to consider as welll, even if you used a java script to detect the res, you have to maintain mulitple pages for varying resolutions. Also, the screen size doesn't necessarily matter, it's the browser window size.

[Schelly]

...even if you used a java script to detect the res, you have to maintain mulitple pages for varying resolutions...

Au contraire! CSS lets you do some pretty amazing things, adjusting for resolutions among them. This (http://www.devx.com/tips/Tip/14369) is an interesting article on the topic. Many many more out there to read.

:)

[bobdog]

I must be the last person to have my desktop at 800x600 :eek:

Many things can be done in css though, mainly using percentages on width and em for font sizes.

My only complaint is people making a fixed width in a table that far exceeds my screen. Scrolling horizontally is not good!

[Schelly]

Hear hear!



But Bob... 800x600? Really????

[Early Out]

But Bob... 800x600? Really????

http://img105.imageshack.us/img105/1765/ibmpcqb6.jpg

[Schelly]

http://www.quitkeepers.com/chat/smiles/16x16/smi_roll.gif

[felgall]

A lot of people are moving to much lower resolutions on handheld devices. Also those with huge screens may not have the browser open full screen. It is best to design your page to allow it to display regardless of screen resolution as much as possible.

[GTOOOOOH]

Au contraire! CSS lets you do some pretty amazing things, adjusting for resolutions among them. This (http://www.devx.com/tips/Tip/14369) is an interesting article on the topic. Many many more out there to read.

:)

Granted it's powerful, but with security settings in newer browsers not all java scripts can run properly without prompting the user, or being blocked completely. That article was also written over 5 years ago, which, as we all know, is ancient in computer terms.

[terrakeramik]

There is a very simple and powerful solution called Google Analytics. You can sign up at http://www.google.com/analytics for free. You will need to copy and paste two lines of Google code into the header of every page you want to track. It tracks user information that Awstats does not track, such as user navigation (entry and exit points and click path), returning users, as well as user info such as browser, platform, connection speed, screen resolution, colors, Java, Flash. I've used it since Nov 1 and am happy. There are a few issues that Google is trying to address (see my blog for a discussion).

[Silverado05]

I use shiny stat for my site. You just place a code on your home page and it will give your a ton of stats including screen resoultion. Here is results from my site. Pretty surprising. not many widescreen viewers except for my screen.

1024x768 43.66 %
1280x1024 22.60 %
Unknown 11.76 %
800x600 11.70 %
1600x1200 7.29 %
Other 2.98 %

[Pethens]

I use these stats when making design decisions for my projects:

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

According to that site, 19% of visitors to the average web site will be using a screen larger than 1024x768. 58% will be using 1024x768, and the rest will have something smaller.

So 1024x768 is still the sweet spot that you should optimize for.

Stephen

[felgall]

You want to produce something that looks good both for huge and small screen resolutions. Remember that the bigger the resolution the less likely that the person will open their browser full screen. Also remember that some people will want to be able to print your page and once you allow for the margins you can't get much over 700 pixels worth across an A4 page so you need something that will look good at that width for printing at least. Web TV users have a fixed width of 544 pixels so if your page can't go that narrow for them they wont see it all since they can only see the left most 544 pixels and can't horizontal scroll to see the rest. Mobile phones and other handhelds have even smaller screens. Web readers don't have any screen at all. Of course you can set up separate stylesheets for each but just remember that screen resolution has NO relationship whatsoever to the size available within the browser window. The browser space will always be at least slightly smaller to allow for fixed toolbars and browser chrome and may be much smaller if the browser isn't maximized.

[Schelly]

That article was also written over 5 years ago, which, as we all know, is ancient in computer terms.

Ahh. Well then, I'm a dinosaur.

My intent was to give you a start, or path to follow. Since you didn't seem interested, I followed it and found this php script (http://www.i2studios.com/php/sizemograph.php). But the page hasn't been updated since 2004, so you probably won't be interested in that either.

:p

[Schelly]

...19% of visitors to the average web site will be using a screen larger than 1024x768. 58% will be using 1024x768, and the rest will have something smaller...

That's right in line with what Jakob Nielsen says (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/screen_resolution.html):



Currently, about 60% of all monitors are set at 1024x768 pixels... In comparison, only about 17% use 800x600 so it's obviously less important to aim at perfection for these small-display users. What's equally obvious, however, is that you can't simply ignore 17% of your customer segment by providing a frozen layout that requires more screen space than they have available.


The full page echoes much of Felgall's sentiments as well.

[page1ink.]

a great tool is ALA's Switchy McLayout (http://www.alistapart.com/articles/switchymclayout/). It automatically changes the working stylesheet as the size of the browser window shrinks/expands.

[redsox9]

I've probably reiterated this in a few of my previous posts and this has already been said here, but you have to think along the lines of who you are trying to reach with your site. If you expect a wide audience of people, then you want to make sure that you design your site to address these issues.

Luckily, the possibilities are endless in terms of laying out your site and it should be possible to develop a format that will minimize the loss of "fringe" visitors that have smaller resolutions, older browsers, etc.

[Hercules]

When I started my site 2 years ago it was optimised for 1920x1200 (everybody I knew used that resolution)
Then someone told me that most people still used 1024x768 I was really shocked, for 8 years I had worked on 1600x1200 or higher resolutions.
These guys must still be working on a Commodore 64!
Last month I made some wallpapers in 2560x1600, the new standard in cool monitors, but mty main site is still visible in 1024x768, in 2 years or so I'll make it 1152x864...

[redsox9]

When I started my site 2 years ago it was optimised for 1920x1200 (everybody I knew used that resolution)
Then someone told me that most people still used 1024x768 I was really shocked, for 8 years I had worked on 1600x1200 or higher resolutions.
These guys must still be working on a Commodore 64!
Last month I made some wallpapers in 2560x1600, the new standard in cool monitors, but mty main site is still visible in 1024x768, in 2 years or so I'll make it 1152x864...

Holy frijoles, Hercules - you either have a 27" widescreen monitor or can read really small print! :D

The point is not so much that you cannot optimize a page for a particular standard if you know that most of your visitors use the same standard. However, that is generally not the case for most e-commerce or informational sites.

For what it's worth, I set the screen resolution on my computers to 1280x1024, but my wife prefers 1024x768. My parents are still stuck at 800x600 but, then again, their eyesight isn't what it use to be.

[felgall]

When I started my site 2 years ago it was optimised for 1920x1200 (everybody I knew used that resolution)
Then someone told me that most people still used 1024x768 I was really shocked, for 8 years I had worked on 1600x1200 or higher resolutions.
These guys must still be working on a Commodore 64!
Last month I made some wallpapers in 2560x1600, the new standard in cool monitors, but mty main site is still visible in 1024x768, in 2 years or so I'll make it 1152x864...

Where do you get a mobile phone with that screen resolution and does the phone still fit in your pocket? If so how can you read the microscopic print?