[thelist] Screen Resolution, which to design for?

[Christian Heilmann]

> You should assess the potential or intended site audience and base
> your assumptions according to the target audience. Users in large
> offices may have larger screens, whilst laptop and home users are
> likely to have smaller resolutions. Whichever you go for, you should
> make the content available to browsers of all sizes, even if layout
> may not be optimally viewed at (for example) smaller screen sizes.

That is a lot of assumptions. MacBook Pros are laptops and have
massive resolutions. Mac Users are also not using browsers full screen
all the time. I might also have a massive resolution and a large font
setting...

> As a guide, these stats are from websites visited which have counters
> installed:
>
> http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2006/December/res.php

God I wished people would stop referring to this "resource". A counter
is as useless as a resource as search engine statistic results would
be. They address everybody and don't have a defined audience. You most
likely will have. Therefore the generic saying that 1024 is a good
resolution could be totally missing the mark for you.

Statistics are useless unless they are results of user testing with
YOUR product.