Blog Reader Monitor Resolution
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Wednesday, September 14, 2005
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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?
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About James Joyner
’tis a mystery.
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Some of us prefer text you can actually read without squinting.
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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…
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My dad sets his monitor to 800×600. 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.
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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 (1792×1344) 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 800×600 are still common enough and as such remain the standard for web page design.
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Or, maybe people with portables or laptops.
Did you get 0 responses for 640×480 (or lower), or did you simply not ask?
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I am 1680 X 1050…
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Gary–The pie is an autogenerated report. There isn’t a query function.
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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.
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On many LCDs, the resolution is fixed. All the current 19″ ones I’m buying are 1280×1024, but I imagine that legacy LCDs, esp laptops, will keep the average down for years.
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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.
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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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