What is the resolution of your screen or screens if you are lucky? Designers and site developers very often have a screen superior to ordinary mortals. It should be remembered that the most popular screen resolution is still 1024 x 768. It is important when designing a site to test the visual in this resolution to see the elements that are visible ‘above the fold’.
My favorite tool for testing the 1024x768 'experiment' is window resizer. This tool integrates with Firefox (3.0) and allows you to simulate the following resolutions: 640×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024 and 1600×1200.
To remember :
- It is recommended to position the most important elements of the page at the top of the fold (you can also repeat them further down the page)
- There remains about 600 pxl of visible in height once the toolbar is taken into account
- You must not exceed 990 pxl wide to consider the scrollbar of the browser
- Some sites are aimed at customers who have computer equipment that is still archaic
- For a question of visual comfort, a user can adjust his screen to a resolution of 800×600
Don’t forget to check the screen resolutions used on your site before doing a redesign. This information can be obtained through performance measurement tools.