Browser Size Survey
In a discussion in the alt.html.critique newsgroup a few interesting questions were raised:
- What is an average screen size in pixels?
- Do people tend to surf with their browser maximised? Or only taking up a smaller portion of their screen?
- Are people with smaller screens more likely to maximise their browser?
- So what is an average browser width in pixels?
A piece of Javascript was developed that would determine screen height and width, and browser height and width, and log them. It queried screen.height and screen.width for the former and looked at .offsetHeight and .offsetWidth on the BODY element. It then assembled those into a query string and loaded an image from my server using that query string, causing the data to appear in my Apache logs.
This script was installed on three different sites, each aimed at different, mostly non-technical audiences. One site offered information about a charitable fundraising event; another was the official website of an unsigned band; the last was an unofficial fan site for an established band.
823 results were gathered in late February and early March 2004.
What is an Average Screen Size in Pixels?
XGA (1024x768) is by far the most common screen size with almost six out of ten visitors using it. After that, most visitors have the lower SVGA (800x600) size, with only about one in six using the larger sized displays.
| Screen size | Occurrences | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 800x600 | 194 | 23.66 |
| 1024x768 | 475 | 57.93 |
| 1152x864 | 42 | 5.12 |
| 1280x1024 | 79 | 9.63 |
| 1600x1200 | 9 | 1.10 |
| Other | 21 | 2.56 |
| Total | 820 | 100.00 |
I expect that in time, this will diversify. Flat panels are becoming more common, but are usually not capable of displays above 1280x1024. As flat panel displays become cheaper, traditional CRT monitors have to compete more on price and quality, and it is already possible to buy 19 inch monitors capable of 1920x1440 displays for under £100. Handheld devices with very small screens are becoming ever more popular and practical.
What is an Average Browser Width in Pixels?
(Note: the orange range is mislabelled. It should be "1000 to 1199".)
Perhaps not surprisingly, the results vary with most users being in the range of 600 to 1200 pixels. The histogram and table below give more detailed results than the pie chart. One can see definite peaks, pointing to some very common browser widths.
| Width | Occur | %age |
|---|---|---|
| Below 400 | 1 | 0.12 |
| 400 to 499 | 3 | 0.37 |
| 500 to 549 | 2 | 0.24 |
| 550 to 579 | 11 | 1.34 |
| 580 to 599 | 31 | 3.78 |
| 600 to 649 | 11 | 1.34 |
| 650 to 699 | 8 | 0.97 |
| 700 to 749 | 32 | 3.90 |
| 750 to 759 | 7 | 0.85 |
| 760 to 769 | 26 | 3.17 |
| 770 to 779 | 32 | 3.90 |
| 780 to 789 | 25 | 3.05 |
| 790 to 799 | 34 | 4.14 |
| 800 to 809 | 74 | 9.01 |
| 810 to 849 | 28 | 3.41 |
| 850 to 899 | 42 | 5.12 |
| 900 to 949 | 31 | 3.78 |
| 950 to 979 | 15 | 1.83 |
| 980 to 999 | 67 | 8.16 |
| 1000 to 1009 | 108 | 13.15 |
| 1010 to 1019 | 41 | 4.99 |
| 1020 to 1029 | 94 | 11.45 |
| 1030 to 1049 | 1 | 0.12 |
| 1050 to 1099 | 15 | 1.83 |
| 1100 to 1149 | 23 | 2.80 |
| 1150 to 1199 | 9 | 1.10 |
| 1200 to 1249 | 5 | 0.61 |
| 1250 to 1299 | 36 | 4.38 |
| 1300 to 1600 | 9 | 1.10 |
Are People with Smaller Screens More Likely to Maximise Their Browser?
Earlier it was discovered that the three most common screen sizes are 800x600, 1024x768 and 1280x1024. As there are only a handful of results at other screen sizes, no meaningful conclusions can be drawn from the habits of those users, so we will disregard those results from this part of the survey and only consider users with 800x600, 1024x768 and 1280x1024 displays.
Of those users with 800x600 screens, more than half (56%) surfed with their browsers maximised and about another quarter have their browser at a width slightly below that. After that, the most popular size is about 600 pixels (75% of screen width) — about 11% of these people use that window size.
Of the users at 1024x768, just under half (49%) use maximised browsers. Only about 4% of these users surf with their browser below about 720px, so this popular 600px does not reoccur here.
Of the users at 1280x1024, only 46% maximise their browsers. Many of the others appear to choose widths of about 800 or 1024 pixels — presumably they frequently visit sites "optimised" for those widths, so keep their browsers at those widths.
We can see that whatever the screen size, a maximised browser window is a popular choice, with roughly half of the visitors surveyed using maximised browsers. And as was expected, people with smaller screens are more likely to maximise their browser.
Conclusion
There is a great variation in screen sizes amongst the browsing public, and this variation is likely to increase. And to add to the variation, about half of the people do not maximise their browsers.
Narrow widths, even below 600 pixels can not be ignored. Nor can widths double that.
To accommodate all these people, a flexible approach to web design is necessary.