A client wanted to do the graphic design for their own website revamp and asked what size to do it. some sites use a dynamic size - expanding the website with the size of the browser - which maximises the space. Although this offers the greatest flexibility, it comes with it’s own challenges with regards to good design and coding.

Although I tend to develop Flash eLearning to run full screen therefore a default of 1024×768, although due to browser security issues you have to allow for the title bar and frame (1016 x 734), although depending on the version of Flash and your browser, this sometimes isn’t the case. Bit of a mine field really!

Typically in the past I’ve developed websites intended for 800×600 at around 783 x 398 actual web space (allowing for scrollbar, border and standard toolbars in browsers).

But more and more I see larger websites as visitors screen sizes increase and generally they run their browser larger or full screen. So now the typical (new) website would generally be around 950×600, although these can fluctuate up and down depending on the developer and design. So somewhere between 850×500 and 1000×700.

There are many considerations, especially mobile phones and older systems using smaller resolutions, but fundamentally you need to look at your target market - look at your existing website stats to see what your visitors resolutions typically are and go with a size that works with your design - too much space can be difficult to fill, too little can look cramped and involve too much scrolling.

Don’t have access to stats? A great resource is W3Schools - The general consensus is that most users are at 1024×768 (48%) but larger resolutions are rising fast (38%), and towards the end of 2008 will probably be the majority.