I'm making a Guild website and I'd like to know:

1) does anyone here still work with 800x600 screen res?
2) does anyone here hate 9-pixel verdana font on websites?

just a couple things that might influence my process… thanks for any input!

1 - Not I!
2 - Prolly.

1. On some school computers, yes. At home, I'm on 1280x1024 or 1024x768.

2. Yup. 12-point Times is nice and easy to read; it's what you should currently be seeing my post rendered in.

1. Seldom, but I always try to design to suit that screen size, just in case. Can't hurt. A useful web page design shouldn't be so cluttered that you need more than 600 pixels for your nav links on the side.

2. One of the nice things about having a Mac is the ease of enlarging text on web pages. I don't waste any time squinting at web sites that don't let me resize text [happens all the time on PCs with IE]. I NEVER like 9pt type. I can read fine print, but I'd rather preserve my eyes cuz I use 'em in my work. No fine print for me.

I prefer websites designed for 800 pixels wide event though my screen goes up to 1280. Why? Three main reasons:

1) I like to keep other windows in view, such as Vendetta, iTunes, or whatever else I'm doing.
2) Sometimes you want to make a printout of a web page, and most browsers do a crappy job of printing really wide web pages.
3) It helps discourage clutter. Many websites are visually crowded by banners at the top, columns of this and that down both sides, and what you really want dead center. Most content that you really want fits very well in an 800 pixel wide window, with a single column of handy navigation features on the left and/or top.

my web-font credo: *never* *expect* *a* *certain* *font* :P

..Seriously, it's cool to "hard-code" fonts into your site, but you can NEVER **hard-code** them in, unless you use sucky this-whole-paragraph-is-a-GIF tactics.. That, and I'm sure I'm not alone in being very heavy-handed with how my browser styles text..

A) Don't hardcode your pages for any screen resolutions. At all. Ever. It's a bitch to make percentages work with IE, yes. But it can be done, and it should be done.

B) Yes, I do hate it. But who cares, since I don't have it on one of my computers anyway. Just remember that all CSS font: specifications should have a generic fallback. IE: "font : 9pt Verdana sans-serif". Also, 9pt is way too small. I have minimum size in firefox @ 10pt. Just remember- sans-serif is WAY better than serif. :D

thanks for all the input! On the font issue, I may use 10 point instead—I'll bear the small-fonts-hurt-my-eyes fact in mind, though.

800x600 seems to be confined to older computers no one keeps at home anymore, and so I generally design at 1024x768 (and run the risk). Still, I like some of the points people made here about clutter and multiple windows. I may go 800, maybe just for that.

1) According to Gartner research, Average screen size is now 1024 x 768, but with a substantial number of users still clinging to 800 x 600 (or its less popular cousin, 832 x 624.)
I try to design with 800 x 600 as my minimum size. Of course, I also keep in mind that most people don't LOVE the site so much as to make it immediately fill their screen. So keeping the site usable at a 500-600 px width is recommended. With minimal scrolling. A website should NOT be a word-processing document.

2)I've set my web browser to override ALL fonts and replace with Myriad Pro 10 pt. (Yay sans-serif!) But, that's me. I hate type that's too small, so if it isn't working I can just Cmd-"+" and increase the size.

And to make Roguelazer happy, do ALL of your website coding in Flash.

gah.... you're eeeeevil :C..

1. 1024 X 768 for most things. 1280 X 1024 for "some" others. I'm on a Mac so
resizing is easy if the site permits. If not, and the text is too small, I'm gone.

2. Yeah. Hate it. Use it and I'm gone.

3. After years of accumulating various "players" I've thrown out all but QuickTime.
If QuickTime won't play it, I won't watch it, and I'm gone.

Yeah, I know there was no "3." Just my two credits worth.

I'm with you on the quicktime thing

My best working computer's screen is 800x600, you insensitive clod! (Not counting my G5...) Until a few minutes ago, it was 1152x768, but I fooded up my bootloader on that computer... (lesson learned: when making changes to the kernel that require bootloader config changes, DON'T FORGET TO UPDATE THE CONFIG)
-:sigma.SB

Hehe, seems more people are using 800 than I thought. =)
Could make for cool design work-arounds...