Is 800×600 already the worst-case scenario?

Last week after visiting CNN.com for the first time in a while, I noticed that together with a new design, they'd switched to a wider layout for 1024+ viewports.

Today I followed a link (via digg) about the New York Times redesign, who have also adopted a wider layout and in so doing alienate their users with an 800x600 screen resolution. Their editor posted a note about the new design, while TechCrunch's Michael Arrington has blogged about some new features, and Subtraction's Khoi Vinh (Design Director for NYTimes.com, and was involved in the redesign's implementation) also has a lot to add in The Awesome Redesign I Didn't Do. This comment on Subtraction by Adam Greenfield stuck out in particular:

Not to sound the rare (lone?) negative note, but I really, really don't like this design. I knew it wasn't yours the moment I saw it, because I couldn't imagine you'd ever have signed off on something so unwieldy.

I see in the Times' design notes that this version is intended to take advantage of the larger monitors an increasing percentage of their readers use, and since they presumably have figures to back that "increasing" up, I suppose I can't argue with that. I do have to say, though, that it looks like ass on my 12" Powerbook.

I suspect my Adblock Firefox extension makes the site so much more attractive, but my interest lies specifically with the choice of layout.

There's nothing unique in catering exclusively for users with wider viewports, but when you consider that they're both news sites - which have proven over the years to be very cautious with redesigns, for me they represent an era of change that's so infrequent in a medium that's so revolutionary. I'm talking about the death of a resolution statistic.

Is 800x600 already the worst-case scenario?

We're right in the middle of a transition period, between 800x600 and 1024x768, with CNN, NYTimes and Newsvine too joining an increasing number of other sites that are dropping 800x600 layouts for good. Compare them with the aged designs of BBC News and IOL for example, and some obvious trends emerge which make it easy to convince anyone on the benefits of upgrading their monitor or resolution setting. Also since a higher resolution doesn't translate into smaller text if you're using a modern web browser which handles text sizing well.

I launched a redesign for Thinkspace on the weekend, an interior design practice here in Cape Town. I'll be posting about this in more detail at a later stage, but for now, the liquid layout technique I've used is the same as all of my other most recent work, which scales to fit a maximum width of 1024, while downsizing for smaller viewports. I've embedded a Flash header and showcase slideshow on the homepage (using deconcept's FlashObject which is great for best practices) and these scale along with the rest of the content. It's unconventional, but it works and you probably wouldn't have realised had I not mentioned it.

(Side-note: subscribe to Geoff Stearns's deconcept blog, it's a hell of a read!)

Without proper research and usability testing it's near impossible to know the surfing habits and screen configuration of your users. So as hardware advances, and users slowly adjust to using larger screen resolutions and wider viewports, and as designers continue to push this envelope, I continue to believe that a liquid layout of sorts is the safest way to accommodate everyone.

UPDATE [13/04]: Sony Ericsson have also switched to a wider (1024+) fixed-width layout.

UPDATE [17/05]: Search giant Yahoo! redesign with a wider 1024+ layout, but also provide for a narrower layout. SkyeMedia writes: Is it Time to Abandon 800x600?