Web Statistics (or, What ever happened to Statmark?)
The one crucial concept that you must keep in mind while you design your Web site is that you have minimal control over the equipment that your visitors use to view your site. That's both the beauty and the beast of the Web. It's great that a black and white Unix terminal at a college campus can use the text-based Lynx editor to view Web pages, but they just won't look the same as if you used a 24bit color monitor on a Windows system. Or imagine trying to view this site on a Palm handheld device. You want your page to look its best in as many systems as you think your viewers will use.
The trick is figuring out what your visitors are using. You may have an idea of what they have (you can probably count on Web designers and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to use the latest version browser) or what they don't (is your sister still using Netscape 1.1?) but if you're trying to attract a general audience, browser statistics may help you focus your efforts on the largest audience.
On pages 18, 58, and 326 of my new book, HTML for the World Wide Web, Fourth Edition: Visual QuickStart Guide, I rave about this new site I found called Statmark that gives statistics for Web and Browser usage. Alas, shortly after the book was published, I began to get comments from readers that the Statmark site didn't work. Sadder still, they were right.
Luckily, I happened to jot down some of the statistics the day I first visited the site, in August of 1999. Certainly, one day's statistics is not nearly as useful as the ongoing data they had available then. Still, I hope it's better than nothing.
Browser usage:
| Internet Explorer |
72%
|
|
IE4x
|
43%
|
|
IE5x
|
25%
|
|
IE3x
|
3.5%
|
| Netscape |
26%
|
|
Net4x
|
23%
|
|
Net3x
|
3%
|
| WebTV |
1.4%
|
(based on 31 million visitors)
Computer:
| Windows | 95% |
| Macintosh | 3% |
| Other | 2% |
| UNIX | 0.5% |
Monitor Resolution:
| 1280 x 1024 | 2% |
| 1024 x 768 | 25% |
| 800 x 600 | 54% |
| 640 x 480 | 13% |
| Others | 3% |
Screen Depth:
| 8 bit (256 colors) | 10% |
| 16 bit (65,536 colors) | 55% |
| 24 bit (16.7 million colors) | 14% |
| 32 bit (4.2 billion colors) | 21% |
JavaScript support:
| Enabled | 90% |
| Disabled | 2.5% |
| Unknown | 7.3% |
Netscape Plugins installed:
| LiveAudio | 83% |
| AVI | 76% |
| Flash | 67% |
| QuickTime | 65% |
| Beatnik | 41% |
| Shockwave | 35% |
| RealPlayer G2 | 34% |
| Media Player | 33% |
| Acrobat | 32% |
| QuickTime 4.01 | 11% |
(All of the above statistics came from Statmark and presumably belong to them.)
Other Sources of Information?
I've searched high and low for other unbiased Web usage statistics, without much luck. The best I've found (besides the short-lived Statmark) is BrowserWatch. Please note, however, that the statistics refer to the visitors to that site. My guess is that people interested in browser statistics are probably a pretty specific group that would tend to have the latest versions of browsers.
If anyone finds a good source of Web usage statistics, please let me know. I'd be very interested.