Would You Like To Browsersize That?

Ever wonder what appears on real users' browsers when they visit your website? If you want a certain percentage of users, let's 90%, to all see the same thing, then you're going to need a tool that tells you in what percentile your web pages fall.

The Google Browser Size is just that tool and is a must have for anyone creating websites. It provides a visualization of browser window sizes, as a percentage of people who visit Google, superimposed on your website. You just enter your website URL, and you get to see contours that match up with different precentages. For example, the "90%" contour means that 90% of people visiting Google have their browser window open to at least this size or larger. Here's how they position this tool at their website:

This is useful for ensuring that important parts of a page's user interface are visible by a wide audience. On the example page that you see when you first visit this site, there is a "donate now" button which falls within the 80% contour, meaning that 20% of users cannot see this button when they first visit the page. 20% is a significant number; knowing this fact would encourage the designer to move the button much higher in the page so it can be seen without scrolling.

And here's what this blog looks like using the Google Browser Size tool:

To view your own Web site with this same visualization overlaid on it, go to http://browsersize.googlelabs.com/, type your URL into the "Enter URL here" textbox at the top of the window and click Go.