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Catch 22

Designing websites today is at best a catch 22. The larger you make the website the more impressive it is for those who can see it, but also the more customers you will lose because they have to scroll sideways to see it.

By the Numbers

Everyone says a picture is worth a thousand words, so lets paint a picture with some real numbers. The Counter is an Internet source that gathers statistical information from various locations on the web, combines the numbers and presents it back to everyone without any analysis, just the numbers. Here is a table showing the resolution of over 50 million hits on various sites allover the Internet. We've eliminated the 6 million hits from systems that did not report their resolution to keep things at 100%.

Resolution	Count	Percent	1280	1024	800
1600x1200	325,217	0.74%	36.45%	36.45%	91.46%
1280x1024	15,749,480	35.72%	36.45%	36.45%
1152x864	1,669,554	3.79%	63.55%	55.01%
1024x768	22,587,009	51.22%		55.01%
800x600	3,675,641	8.34%		8.54%	8.34%
640x480	89,332	0.20%		8.54%	0.20%
Sub-Total	44,096,233	Source: The Counter, December 2008
Unknown	6,088,975
Total	50,186,208

The chart shows the raw numbers and the approximate percentage of users viewing the web at various display resolutions. It also shows the results when pages are designed for 1280, 1024, and 800 width screens. The green blocks show the percentage of visitors who will get a page that is optimized for the screen they are using. The yellow blocks show the percentage of visitors that will get a less than optimum page floating in the center of their wider browser; you probably will not lose these customers, but you will not give them the best impression of your company either. The red blocks so the percentage of visitors that will be forced to scroll sideways; you will most likely lose these customers.

Using the chart we can analyze the catch 22 situation. Do you want to create the least impressive website at 800 pixels where you risk losing less than 1% of your visitors but under-impress over 90% of your visitors? Or, will you sacrifice 8.54% of your potential customers in order to give a better impression on the rest of your potential customers? Or, will you create the ultimate site for your 1280 visitors and risk losing 63.55% of your potential customers?

The BitWare Solution

Lets look at the same problem when Variable HTML™ is used. Variable HTML™ requires JavaScript and statistics indicate that somewhere between 3% and 5% of all computers have JavaScript disabled. Since there may be other reasons why the JavaScript running in a browser may not be compatible with Variable HTML, the following table is based on a very conservative 80% of target browsers having the ability to run the JavaScripts properly. In this case, the pages will display at the default resolution chosen by the site designer.

The third column now indicated the number of systems that support Variable HTML™ and will therefore automatically display the most optimum page that each system can display. The percentage column now represents the systems that will not auto-adjust and will therefore display at the default style.

Width	Count	80%	non-JS	%	1280	1024	800
1600	325k	260k	65k	0.2%	7.3%	7.3%	18.3%
1280	15,749k	12,599k	3,149k	7.1%	7.3%	7.3%
1152	1,669k	1,335k	333k	0.8%	12.7%	11.0%
1024	22,587k	18,069k	4,517k	10.2%		11.0%
800	3,675k	2,940k	735k	1.7%		1.7%	1.7%
640	89k	71k	17k	0.04%		1.7%	0.04%
Adjustable		35,276k		80.0%	80.0%	80.0%	80.0%

Since 80% of the visitors now have browsers that will automatically display pages that are optimized for their screens, this results in a significant decrease in the percentage of visitors that fall in the red and yellow categories. With Variable HTML™ you can design pages for up to five different display resolutions and then choose one as your default display for those browsers that will not support the JavaScript. The Catch 22 decision is much easier to make with smaller numbers.

Designing your pages at a fixed width of 1024 risks the lose of about one customer in eleven. Creating variable width pages with a default size of 1024 risks the lose of only one customer in sixty when you design with Variable HTML™.