As web designers we're constantly having to make decisions on how to optimise websites while catering for as many users as possible. We often want to introduce new features and functionality using new technologies but we know that doing so may mean that a percentage of potential users may not be able to use the site or make full use of it's new functionality.
It's useful in these situations to have access to some decent
stats so that we know how many people we may potentially alienate, but they're not always easy to come by and are obviously constantly changing. So, we've collected together as many as we can from around the web and present our handy guide to
stats for web designers.
Most popular browsers statistics
These are the most popular browsers according to the most up-to-date stats we can find.
| Source |
w3schools.com
October 2008
|
w3counter.com
October 2008
|
thecounter.com
November 2008
|
| IE7 |
26.9% |
29.71% |
42% |
| IE6 |
20.2% |
29.34% |
35% |
| Firefox |
44.0% |
30.13% |
17.0% |
| Mozilla |
0.4% |
0.61% |
|
| Safari |
2.8% |
2.77% |
4% |
| Opera |
2.2% |
1.36% |
1% |
| Chrome |
3.0% |
|
|
What's interesting about these stats is that it shows (according to the W3 Schools stats) just how slow users have been to upgrade
Internet Explorer to version 7. From a web designer's point of view there is a big difference between
IE6 and IE7 but from the users point of view there is very little difference. This means that for now at least we have to continue to test all our websites in
IE6 and include hacks to make sure everything works. It also means not making use of more modern
CSS techniques without running the risk of something not working in over 20% of user's browsers.
It will be interesting to see what inroads Internet Explorer 8 can make into that table in 2009 while so many people are still using
IE6.
It's also interesting to see how many people are now using Firefox and what relatively little impact Safari has had so far.
Most popular screen width statistics
| Source |
w3counter.com
October 2008
|
thecounter.com
November 2008
|
Market Share
November 2008
|
| 800 |
5.61% |
7% |
4.69% |
| 1024 |
41.64% |
45% |
37.59% |
| 1152 |
3.31% |
3% |
2.9% |
| 1280 |
33.35% |
31% |
35.62% |
| 1440 |
5.96% |
|
8.73% |
| 1680 |
4.28% |
|
5.85% |
| 1920 |
1.35% |
|
1.73% |
I think it's safe to say that designing for screens that can display 1024 pixels is a fairly safe bet. That 7% using narrower screens is continuing to decrease and those people are quite used to the fact that most modern websites will cause them to have to scroll sideways a bit. We tend to design our sites to 960 pixels wise (to leave room for the scrollbar and browser borders). Sticking to a fixed 960 pixel width also means that you can design your site using the
960px grid system.
Most popular operating system statistics
| Source |
w3schools.com
October 2008
|
w3counter.com
November 2008
|
Market Share
November 2008
|
| Windows XP |
72.2% |
73.80% |
66.31% |
| Windows Vista |
14.4% |
12.14% |
20.45% |
| Windows 2000 |
1.9% |
2.33% |
1.56% |
| Windows 98 |
0.2% |
0.62% |
0.29% |
| Linux |
3.8% |
2.09% |
0.83% |
| Mac OS |
5.5% |
5.33% |
8.86% |
Apple have increased their market share by a small amount recently but the "halo effect" surround other popular products such as the iPhone has failed to increase their market share beyond around 5.5%.
So, is it worth designing your website to work on a Mac? Well, the majority of Mac users use Safari and Firefox which are both available for the PC, so even if you develop on a PC it's fairly easy to test the browser that most Mac users will be using. 5.5% is not an insignificant number and if your site doesn't work on a mac you'll get plenty of complaints.
Browser Plugin statistics
| Source |
adobe.com
September 2008
|
| Flash |
99% |
| Java |
82% |
| Windows Media Player |
77% |
| Apple Quicktime |
64% |
| Adobe Shockwave |
58% |
| Real Player |
47% |
| SVG |
7% |
The most recent
statistics we can find are from a study commissioned by Adobe in 2007, which may not be considered to be the most unbiased source. However, although they may have left out competing technologies such as
Microsoft Silverlight, we have no reason to believe they are inaccurate.
Microsoft recently revealed that Silverlight penetration has reached 25%
What they do show is that it's pretty much impossible to use the web without having Flash installed. Flash has become the most popular choice for video sites because of it's penetration and is a safer choice than including Windows Media files or Apple Quicktime videos. It's not necessarily the cheapest choice though.
Flash Version statistics
| Source |
adobe.com
September 2008
|
| Version 7+ |
98.6% |
| Version 8+ |
98.3% |
| Version9+ |
97.7% |
Not only is the Flash player pretty much ubiquitous but nearly all users have updated to the latest version. Version 10 has been released and I wouldn't be surprised if the next batch of stats show that it reaching over 90% penetration pretty quickly This can probably be attributed to the automatic updates, along with the fact that the install is easy and unobtrusive.
Javascript version statistics
| Source |
thecounter.com
November 2008
|
| Javascript 1.2+ |
93% |
| Javascript <1.2 |
0% |
| No Javascript |
6% |
That 6% is interesting because most modern websites use
JavaScript in some form. Most web browsers on mobile phones have little support for
JavaScript, although this is already changing.
If you're considering building a site which is heavy on
JavaScript then you should consider whether a large part of your audience would fall within that 6%. So, if you're developing a site for mobile users or users on strictly controlled work computers then you may want to re-think.
Conclusion
If you're a web designer then most of these stats won't come as a big surprise.
Users have flocked to Firefox over the last few years and with Firefox 3 out and IE8 currently in beta it'll be interesting to see how the browser wars develop (and whether Safari manages to make inroads into the PC market). Screen sizes continue to increase with less than 10% of users now using under a 1024px x 768px screen resolution and more and more using widescreen resolutions. 93% of users have
JavaScript switched on.
So, if you design your website for 1024 pixel wide screens, test it on
IE6, IE7 and Firefox (plus Safari to be sure) and fancy using a bit of
JavaScript or Flash then you can't go very wrong. The one thing we would always advise though is to consider the audience your website is aimed at and ask yourself whether they may be different to the "average user".
Over the next few years we expect to see the browser stats stay pretty stagnant, more and more people access websites from mobile devices and
Microsoft Silverlight start appearing in the Browser plugin stats.
Just don't quote me on that.