[WEB4LIB] Screen Resolution Settings

[Prentiss Riddle]

Some more data points for anyone who hasn't tired of the screen
resolution question:

The Yale Web Style Manual (http://info.med.yale.edu/caim/manual, also
published as an excellent book) suggests the "safe area" of 595x295
pixels as what will be seen without scrolling on most browsers.  If you
do go with a bigger size, you want to make sure that crucial
information and navigational cues are visible within that box.  They
also say that any document you intend for people to print should be no
wider than 535 pixels.

I did my own survey earlier this summer of the width assumptions made
by some prominent .com and .edu sites, attached below.  (I focused on
width rather than height because I don't consider vertical scrolling to
be a bad thing, provided you give some thought to the "above-the-fold"
vs. "below-the-fold" sections of a page; horizontal scrolling is much
more difficult and best avoided if possible.)

-- Prentiss Riddle ("aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada") riddle at rice.edu
-- Webmaster, Rice University / http://is.rice.edu/~riddle 
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Minimum pixel width to avoid scrolling

Based on convenience samples
        .com sites from top of 100hot.com popularity ratings
        .edu sites from our occasional survey of university websites

Pixel widths are approximate, determined experimentally using
Communicator 4.51 for Solaris.

Result: median width for .com sites: 627 pixels
        median width for .edu sites: 621 pixels

727     go.com
694     bluemountain.com
673     excite.com
665     deja.com
650     hotbot.com
637     netscape.com
633     lycos.com
633     go2net.com
632     xoom.com
632     webcrawler.com
627     microsoft.com
626     yahoo.com
624     cnet.com
624     cnet.com
622     amazon.com
619     pathfinder.com
619     compaq.com
617     aol.com
616     magellan.com
616     altavista.com
591     tandem.com
552     warnerbros.com

854     princeton.edu
693     unc.edu
662     ucla.edu
646     umn.edu
641     harvard.edu
640     yale.edu
637     vanderbilt.edu
632     rutgers.edu
632     duke.edu
624     virginia.edu
617     columbia.edu
608     uiuc.edu
606     usc.edu
576     wustl.edu
551     dartmouth.edu
547     cmu.edu
534     utexas.edu
534     stanford.edu
518     umich.edu
506     rice.edu
408     mit.edu
-NA-    caltech.edu