What is the optimal screen resolution?
2009-01-26 10:40:31
Measuring a users screen resolution is harder than detecting what browser they are using. Its not sent automatically with every request and has to be detected through the use of javascript. If a user has javascript turned off then you can't easily measure it. (I'm ignoring the fact that plug-in and toolbar providers do have access to some of this information at present)
While you could go through the process of detecting the users screen resolution, and probably should if your users aren't a normal cross-section of the browsing population, its far easier to see what the big websites are doing.
| Website | X Resolution |
|---|---|
| New York Times | 972 pixels |
| CNN | 1002 pixels |
| The Register | 956 pixels |
| BBC | 974 pixels |
| Yahoo | 950 pixels |
| Daily Mail | 964 pixels |
We sampled a random selection of websites, as you can see from the table all of the websites chosen are optimised for 1024 pixels screen width.