Back in June I mentioned being surprised by the low number of visitors to this site using 800 x 600 pixel monitors. At the time the exact number was zero. Well it’s increased a bit since then. Now a whopping 0.67% of visitors here have the mini-monitors. In spite of that, I think I’ll still feel comfortable ignoring them when I get around to the redesign.
I still find those results a bit startling, so I decided to do a quick survey of a few other sites I manage. Here’s the results:
Percent of users with 800×600 monitors
Website: 2007 to date / for July 2007 (target audience)
SEOrefugee.com: 2.01% / 2.01% (search engine optimizers)
NetDetours.com: 10.31% / 7.07% (general interest)
TOONrefugee.com: 7.34% / 6.08% (general interest with focus on sports, computers, etc.)
Extrapolating (unscientifically) I’d guess that most sites have already reached the magic 10% level where it suddenly seems OK to ignore the resolution-challenged in their audience. And I wouldn’t rule out that most of them will be at the 5% level by the end of the year.
To help confirm my conclusions, I check five other sites whose information I can only share in a general manner. The highest concentration of the smaller monitors was 13%. Another site was right at the magic 10% level. A third was at 7% and the other two were below 5%.
So it looks like 1024 x 768 is the new 800 x 600.
It makes me feel old, I remember when 800 x 600 was the new 640 x 480.