Blog Reader Monitor Resolution
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James Joyner | Wednesday, September 14, 2005 |
David Smith has been quietly adding new features to SiteMeter in recent months. One that’s been around for a while that I’ve just noticed is the ability to track the monitor resolution of the site’s readers.
I’ve noticed that more and more blogs are going to a bigger window for the main content portion, presumably on the assumption that most readers have newish monitors and are using much higher screen resolutions. A check of OTB’s stats would indicate that this is indeed the case:
Here’s the rub, though: A stunning 17.44% of OTB’s readers are still using 800×600. What’s the deal with that?
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.
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'tis a mystery.
Some of us prefer text you can actually read without squinting.
Those surfing from work may have no choice. Many organizations "lock down" their client configurations, so users can't change them even if the hardware supports higher rez...
My dad sets his monitor to 800x600. Drives me nuts when I go to visit. So if I use the computer, I set the resolution to something lower which in turn drives him insane.
After looking at the linked chart page and a refresh or two it looks like the data only covers a very short time period. Since I use a very rare resolution (1792x1344) I was able to watch my session be dropped from the chart (based on 80-85 data points it seems) after a few minutes. Resolutions of 800x600 are still common enough and as such remain the standard for web page design.
Or, maybe people with portables or laptops.
Did you get 0 responses for 640x480 (or lower), or did you simply not ask?
I am 1680 X 1050...
Gary--The pie is an autogenerated report. There isn't a query function.
Older users may have visual impairments that make a lower resolution more readable. With others, it's just a matter of preference. My wife goes with a lower resolution than me, because she had laser eye surgery for her distance vision, but still needs to use reading glasses for near vision. If she uses a lower resolution, she can get by without the reading glasses.
On many LCDs, the resolution is fixed. All the current 19" ones I'm buying are 1280x1024, but I imagine that legacy LCDs, esp laptops, will keep the average down for years.
David Smith has been quietly adding new features to SiteMeter in recent months. One that's been around for a while that I've just noticed is the ability to track the monitor resolution of the site's readers.
I'd just like for him to focus on accurately tracking site visits for a while. My site statistics, while very small compared to yours, fluctuate wildly at times even within a day over the past few weeks. I'm just not sure I'm getting an accurate picture.
I'd much rather have that than monitor resolution stats, which I can get from my control panel stats if I'm so inclined.
I've done quite a bit of work on this for financial websites and these numbers look in line with typical results. The 8X6 are older users. It looks like this is a small sample size to have a consistent percentage on the very high resolutions. They should also be able to provide you with browser statistics which is more interesting.
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