I keep seeing these sites that have minimum requirements for viewing. Â Some require ridiculous resolutions (yay, look at my alliteration, mom!) that are way above the standard, and I felt like it was worth discussing here. Â
I can understand if you want to cater to a specific audience. Â Not to state the obvious, but when you cater to a specific audience, you leave out lots of other potential visitors and customers, and if it’s a site like a portfolio or e-commerce, that means you’re going to lose customers.
Instead, you should be friendly towards the majority and work within the accepted standard screen resolution of 1024×768. Â Yes, we know your site is mega-fresh and super awesome with lots of neat Flash eye candy, but you should still design it and build it to function in a normal window. Â
On that note, here’s what I do.  I’ve been designing sites that have a width of no more than 950 pixels, and have had a lot of luck with it so far.  Sometimes height is also a concern, depending on the site.  If it a concern, I usually make a guide at 600 pixels to make sure all the most important information is above that line.  (A horizontal guide at 600 pixels compensates for all the toolbars and whatnots people add onto their browsers.)  That way you don’t tax those browsers below 1024×768 screens too hard, and seems to fit nicely within the current standards.
What do you do when designing websites? Â Do you care about standards, and what do you do in consideration of them?
