Vartro - Website and Mobile Conversion Service

Australian websites: 978px is the new 960px

With monitor screens getting bigger by the day and new screening devices emerging into the market, it is important to understand that screen resolution affects our designs. There is more to building a website than just creativity – more importantly you need to cater to the end user, who is your potential customer. As Michelangelo once said “A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.”

In this article we take a look at heavy weight players within the Australian web industry – the top ten websites which receive massive amounts of traffic according to Alexa (excludes international websites and government based websites). This data gives us a good indication of the current resolution trends expected by a majority of the Australian population.

Based on the above results, we can see that web design width dimensions are beginning to grow. The default 960px width is slowly increasing due to technology enhancements and user demand, so designers need to take this into consideration.

With all that said, 978px is the new 960px. Use your brain, do some research – 960px width will be outdated soon, so by sticking to the current trend research and learning your audience expectations, you can’t go wrong with screen size.

Remember to keep these dimensions in mind while designing your next website, then send it through to Vartro for award worthy conversion. We are happy to assist you with any queries related to this topic.

User Comments

• 

  Daniel Moore

  April 9th

  Its great to see the resolution increasing (even if it is ever so slightly), however I wonder how far it will actually go (in the near future) with mobile based web technologies on the rise (such as the iPhone and iPad).

  We can only go as wide as our audience will let us, and if that means more mobile based devices are being used, pushing those boundaries too far could be more of a detriment.

  Good article though, great to see some research being put down for some of the more prominent (known and wide spread) australian websites.

  – Dan
• 

  Edz

  April 10th

  “Change is the only constant”
  Same as what happened on the desktop will happen on mobile devices.
  Thanks for the reminder
• 

  Vartro

  April 10th

  @Daniel Agree, with mobile websites becoming more of a demand this year due to the iPhone and other smartphones, it will be interesting to see the outcome.
• 

  Jason

  April 12th

  Might need to update your template download files and other references to the staple 960
• 

  Vartro

  April 12th

  @Jason You can find the updated design guidelines here
• 

  sly

  April 15th

  Untill 1024 becomes outdated and used by a very small percentage of users then 960 will still be the prefered size give or take a few pixels. With the take off of netbooks and their small screens i dont see this changing for many years.

  Just because some of the big heavy traffic sites are pushing the 1000 limit does that mean its ok and we should change too? Have you tried looking at some of those sites in 1024 window? You get a horizontal scroll bar which is what we aim to avoid is it not?
• 

  Vartro

  April 15th

  @sly Thanks for your input, you bring up some valid points.

  In no way is this article proposing designers to go 1000px. We have averaged the top 10 sites and summarised a safe commercial grade dimension of 978px.

  There is no “on and off” switch that tells you when to increase the width, it is a matter of gradual increase based on time and user demand. As you can see (Web Statistics and Trends) – 1024×768px displays are rapidly on a decrease therefore web width is starting to increase.
• 

  PT Campbell

  April 30th

  For the sake of an extra 18 pixels, it is not worth trading off a harmoniously divisible 960 pixel width, which fit in well with established grid structures and layouts.
• 

  Vartro

  September 22nd

  This is an interesting read with regards to 960px and 978px grid system:
  http://www.webdesignerwall.com/trends/960-grid-system-is-getting-old/