What is the consensus on page width

[Laus]

I know this may be a bit of a boring question but I am currently working on one of the regional Welsh Tourist Board sites and opinion is split as to whether it should still cater for people viewing on 800 x 600.

Stats show that these viewers are as little as 2% now and even the BBC site is currently testing a beta version which is 1064 wide instead.

My personal experience from providing sites to Wales is that there is still a higher number percentage wise here that are still viewing at 800 x 600 but finding figures to support this are difficult.

Would anyone be able to give me their input on the question of whether Wales is ready for 1064 yet or not?

[jonhurlock]

I personally prefer to design to a max-width of 800px.

However, Im not so sure about a 1064 width? This is rather odd, are you sure this is correct, most monitors now display at 1024x768 or above. So I would recommend setting your maximum width to either 1024px or something around the 960px mark.

Generally I would say do what you feel is sensible, but as you are designing a regional tourist board website, it would be best to stick to guidelines set down by the W3C and WASP. It is definately worth reading this article on web accessibility and it implications (under UK Law).

Btw. the beta version of the BBC site is now live if you are still using the old URL.