RSS Feeds: An Argument for Fluid-Width Design
Going back through my stats at Clicky, I noticed something that stood out: The largest percentage of my visitors do not use what most bloggers use for their themes, the 1024×768 fixed-width. That resolution was used by only 31.9% of my visitors in the last 30 days. It is said that a picture can speak a thousand words. Well, I didn't take screen shots because the layout of the page that I'd be capturing would make this page extremely long. The following table will make it long enough as is:
| Resolution | # Visitors | Percentage |
| 1024×768 | 4,123 | 31.9 % |
| 1280×1024 | 2,267 | 17.5 % |
| 1280×800 | 1,732 | 13.4 % |
| 1440×900 | 914 | 7.1 % |
| 1680×1050 | 739 | 5.7 % |
| 800×600 | 682 | 5.3 % |
| 1152×864 | 387 | 3 % |
| 1920×1200 | 232 | 1.8 % |
| 1600×1200 | 214 | 1.7 % |
| 1280×768 | 195 | 1.5 % |
| 1400×1050 | 156 | 1.2 % |
| 1280×960 | 128 | 1 % |
| 1280×854 | 70 | 0.5 % |
| 1280×720 | 24 | 0.2 % |
| 1360×768 | 16 | 0.1 % |
| 2560×1600 | 15 | 0.1 % |
| 1440×960 | 13 | 0.1 % |
| 2560×1024 | 13 | 0.1 % |
| 1344×840 | 9 | 0.1 % |
| 1152×720 | 9 | 0.1 % |
| 1200×1920 | 7 | 0.1 % |
| 800×664 | 7 | 0.1 % |
| 320×396 | 6 | 0 % |
| 1024×1280 | 5 | 0 % |
| 1920×1080 | 5 | 0 % |
| 1600×900 | 4 | 0 % |
| 800×496 | 4 | 0 % |
| 1366×768 | 4 | 0 % |
| 240×320 | 4 | 0 % |
| 1024×640 | 4 | 0 % |
| 1152×768 | 4 | 0 % |
| 800×5000 | 3 | 0 % |
| 640×480 | 3 | 0 % |
| 2048×768 | 3 | 0 % |
| 1800×1440 | 3 | 0 % |
| 1360×1024 | 3 | 0 % |
| 1792×1344 | 3 | 0 % |
| 960×600 | 3 | 0 % |
| 1200×1600 | 3 | 0 % |
| 1152×648 | 2 | 0 % |
| 1050×1680 | 2 | 0 % |
| 1152×870 | 2 | 0 % |
| 768×1024 | 2 | 0 % |
| 1600×1024 | 2 | 0 % |
| 1024×819 | 2 | 0 % |
| 2880×900 | 1 | 0 % |
| 5760×1600 | 1 | 0 % |
| 1024×600 | 1 | 0 % |
| 1024×699 | 1 | 0 % |
If you look carefully, you'll notice that the combined percentage of visitors using a resolution greater than 1024×768 is in the majority. Why wouldn't we want to support the majority, as well as the minority?
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lol wth 5760×1600, what kind of resolution is that?:P Anyway, yeah people still use 1024×768 as main on my sites too so i have to optimize on that.
I much prefer fluid templates. I read an article yesterday, I can't remember where, that included using fluid width designs as one of the biggest blogging mistakes you can make. Not wishing to be nasty, but a. that's bollocks, and b. using a screen resolution of 800*640 is one of the biggest mistakes you can make for your eyes…..
Like the new background image on the blog, been here long? :oops:
I've actually come across several since I published this piece. The advantage of writing before reading is that I'm not influenced by what someone else writes first. Monitors are getting better and better. Resolutions are expanding. Locking into a lower resolution is a mistake, in my opinion. Ten years from now, 1024×768 will almost be unheard of. I don't know about you, but I don't want to change my theme again unless I have a really good reason to do so.
Yeah, the background is new, about a day old. It was the last piece of the old theme that I hadn't modified. I still need to fix a couple of things, but no one should notice when I do.