Minimum view area?

[lucidmedia]

Currently planning a site that will have elements of fluid layout, but will have a "core" that -- sadly -- must stay fixed. Of course, I don't want users to have to scroll to see it.

On "todays internet" what is your opinion on the smallest viewport that you care about? 955 x 600? 1000 x 800? smaller? larger?

The site is is for a museum exhibition, and targeted at a youngish-to-middle-age, educated, somewhat-affluent audience who are looking for a visual experience -- so bigger is better, but I want to find a balance between best experience and most average supported users.

 

[angelwatt]

Stats like this one can provide a glimpse at what people are setup with. Not stats are absolute of course though so just use them as a piece of information, not a fact.

As far as opinions though it kind of depends on the layout too and if there are sidebars. Generally speaking, a line of text is best between 32 and 45 em (approximately 45-76 characters per line).

 

[lucidmedia]

thanks angelwatt!

the browser statistics are useful. I wish they were tracking larger resolutions however, as I am trying to figure out how much larger than 955 x 600 I can safely go -- particularly in the vertical direction.

The "site" is actually a AS3 app written in Flex4, so I can do a good deal of dynamic positioning of elements like sidebars and the such algorithmically, but I want to make sure that that core imagebrowser takes up most of the "safe zone".

 

[s.r.]

Minimum view area?

The Minimum view area by height is different in all the browsers
By width IMHO it's still 1000px(after ScrollBar) for 1024x768px, less it's already very rarely

Display Resolution Statistics

IMHO the problem here is that any common user uses the different toolbars and OS taskbars, which is always reduces the view area by height, and these measures are can be variable
if we are going to build on standard browser settings, take a look and compare Browser View Area in the attached image for the 1024x768px resolution

Browser Statistics
For your self investigation you can use a ff useful plugin Firesize


How you are able to calculate your best height further, it is up to you
You can use Golden ratio division 1000/1.6= 625
Or you are going from minimum measure 576px

Good luck, hope my explanation and image are helpful
Alex

 

[lucidmedia]

Thanks S.R... I appreciate your comments...

So, the big question is: what is the percentage of users running monitors with resolutions higher than 1024 x 768?

I suppose I am really just pulling hairs over less than 50 vertical pixels...