[thelist] screen resolutions + critique

[aardvark]

> From: Walker, Matthew
>
> Hmm, I quoted Yahoo as they are known (as I see
> it anyway) for extremely conservative design.

this is true, but they sometimes screw up, too... again, why
a 640-wide table?

> Thanks for those great links. The second one suggested
> around 6% (probably less by now) use 640x480.

just a note, there are two flaws with that response:

1) yes, the second article suggested 6% of users at 640x480,
but it is *not* probably less by now, at least not
significantly (statistically)... between the two articles is
a span of over a year, with a drop of maybe 50%... the
second article is from stats through the beginning of the
summer (northern hemisphere), only a couple months old,
tops... so there may be a 1% fall-off, but that's not too
much... this of course ignores the testing methodology, so
keep reading...

2) the stats on that second article are only for *one* site,
my own... while we do have a pretty diverse set of users, we
generally get more technically savvy surfers based on our
services... in fact, those numbers for 640x480 are *growing*
since our site now has a link from a local popular
not-for-profit campaign... those stats also only track 4.x
browsers, so all the WebTV and pre-4.x users are
categorically ignored...

ultimately, you have to know about *your* users... if you're
basing your site design on the generic user, you're somewhat
better off than basing it on users to *my* site...

hth