Screen Display Resolution – What screen size should you test your web site for?

Computer users have many different computer screen sizes depending on the type of monitor they’re using. These include screens on laptops, notebooks, desktops and hand held devices. If your web site doesn’t display well on your visitors’ computers they’ll lose patience and go elsewhere. Make sure your web site can be displayed correctly for all popular screen resolutions.

display resolution statistics

Example

If you design a web site with 3 columns it may look fine on a wide computer screen but the columns may get squashed together on a lower resolution so the images and text can’t be seen clearly.

So how do you know if your web site displays correctly on different screens?
If you’re a web designer, what screen size(s) should you design for?

Let’s first look at Screen display resolution statistics

Screen resolutions include 640×480, 800×600, 1024×768, Higher, Unknown+

According to the statistics chart shown above 57% use a higher screen resolution than 1024×768. The next most popular is 1024×768 at 36% which most laptops use.

Ways to check your web site for different screen display resolutions

Firefox Add-on
Get the web developer add-on at: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/60 Use the resize function to resize your computer screen for a specific resolution.

Software resizer
http://www.brianapps.net/sizer/
Sizer is a freeware utility that allows you to resize any window to an exact, predefined size.

Adjust computer settings
This takes more time but offers you another alternative. To adjust your computer settings go to:
Start-control panel-display-settings-screen resolution

What screen size(s) should you design for?

Since most computer users view web sites at 1024X768 pixels or above, make the width of your web site approximately 1000 pixels. Don’t go higher than 1024 pixel width because visitors will have to scroll horizontally to view it.

Alternatively use percentage widths so your web site width will adjust to the width of the monitor. For example make the width of your main table or cascading style sheet 100%.

Tip
If you design your web site for a screen resolution of 800×600 pixels or smaller it will look very small on a large screen. You’ll see more background color than the actual web site thus making it look unprofessional.

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To receive a free quote for professional web site design that
will render well for all major screen resolutions visit:
Professional Web Design

Comments

  1. Thanks.

    But i want to check my website to different resolutions in Laptops, Notebook and Desktop.

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