Best width to design for?

Hi there,

I was wondering what the best width is to design for. I used to design at around 750px, but feel I should be moving to 900px - 1000px. What should I be doing these days?

I usually use 900px width as my standard size. I've seen a lot more lately wider than that but I stop at 900. I've had two clients that demanded more than that but I don't like to.

I find the best way for me is to design the site so it looks the same regardless of browser resolution. I used to design for 1024px resolution but as monitors get bigger so do screen resolutions, while it still seems that 1024px is the most popular (across my sites at least) I try and design for everyone regardless of screen size / resolution using percentages rather than pixels.

A few clients have asked for certain resolutions on their sites and in the cases where they cant be talked round i can usually compromise and design 3 templates using a sniffer to detect screen resolution and direct them to the relevant template for their screen, this requires a bit more wwork for no extra cash on my part but at least it keeps in with pleasing the viewers and not just the owners.

Yeah, you can do a liquid layout, so that it will expand to the width of the screen, but I know that sometimes a fixed width layout is best.

I would recommend assuming that most of your visitors have 1024 x 768 resolution, then make sure that the layout still looks good other (including widescreen) resolutions. (600 x 800 just isn't an issue. Yes, some people might still have it, the way some people might still have IE5, but it just isn't enough to justify reducing the usability of your site)

It really depends a lot on your users.

For one thing, Senior citizens tend to prefer 800x600 to 1024x768.

For another, what if someone is running higher res. but doesn't have their window maximized?
The importance of window-width
The Definitive FAQ on Screen Resolution
Actual Browser Sizes
Poll results: 50.4% of respondents maximise windows

I for one use 1024x768 and usually don't have my browser window maximized.