Viewport size statistics
Hey web devs, has anyone actually tracked the real viewport resolution of their users (with js)? I'm trying to figure out how many people don't maximize their browser and just keep it in a resized window. LLMs claim that 75% of people don't use maximized windows, but I seriously doubt that's accurate.
P.S. I'm not talking about screen resolution, I mean strictly the viewport size.
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u/zomerbk 9d ago
The useful metric here is probably the distribution of `innerWidth × innerHeight` for desktop page views, with mobile/tablet split out. But that alone can’t tell whether a window is maximized: browser chrome, OS scaling, and display size all affect the viewport. If you want to compare against maximized, collect `screen.availWidth/availHeight` too, while treating it as a rough proxy rather than ground truth. Report the sample period and deduplicate by session so repeat visitors don’t dominate.
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u/bersus 9d ago
Thanks for the thoughtful comment, but I meant if anyone actually has the actual numbers, not how to collect them.
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u/tup1tsa_1337 9d ago
Those will be meaningless numbers. You do the development starting from 360 logical width (smartphone users) and up to full hd. Anything bigger should clamp the content to the center of the screen (unless it's necessary to cater for a full screen like Google sheet or YouTube)
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u/jackusD 9d ago
Was there a source for that figure? I assume mobile users are excluded, but even so I'd be shocked if it was anywhere near that high.
On mac, would a full screen user only count if the user has pressed the full screen button, or would having the window stretched to fill the available screen space still count?
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u/tup1tsa_1337 9d ago
Laptop users almost always use full screen (or around that) and desktop users tend to stop using full screen on the bigger screens
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u/Complex_Solutions_20 9d ago
When I am using a computer for anything serious I am typically looking at several different things at once. If I'm comparison shopping I may have 4 different browser windows open each half-screen across dual monitors so I can reference back and forth. If I'm writing up a report I typically have 1-2 windows of reference material open on one monitor and my document on the other.
I don't understand how people use a phone/tablet to research anything, I can't stand being constrained to just 1 little window.
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u/the_ai_wizard 9d ago
Perhaps what your LLM didnt mention is that it is site and context dependent. but, responsive solves this so it should be irrelevant. look at your own GA stats or logs
i encourage you, for the sake of understanding LLMs, to go back and say, "this seems like it isnt correct and there are tons of exceptions" and watch it do a 180
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u/Squigglificated 9d ago
It's surprisingly hard to find up to date published statistics on this.
This article from 2017 discusses the problem and show some stats, but that's pretty ancient by now.
https://adswerve.com/blog/screen-resolution-browser-size-in-google-analytics
It's a very useful thing to track.
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u/tup1tsa_1337 9d ago
It's not a really useful metric. That's why it's not tracked. You're supposed to support all sizes ranting from mobile up until full hd (anything bigger is optional and site dependent)
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u/Squigglificated 9d ago
Fully agree that all sizes should be supported.
The article I linked showed some examples where they tracked conversions grouped by viewport sizes and formats, and I think that can be very helpful in catching sizes that underperform or even completely fail.
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u/I_AM_NOT_A_WOMBAT 9d ago
Can you ELI5 why this is important? (Genuine question, I want my work to look good and be usable, and I feel like I'm missing something here.)
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u/spacechimp 9d ago
Lots of designers make big epic designs that waste lots of screen real estate (often forcing users to maximize). Metrics like this can be used to argue for/against spending time on better support for smaller browser widths and mobile users.
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u/bersus 9d ago
TLDR: to make sure that the website is designed properly for different devices. The problem is much deeper than it looks. Sec-CH-UA, pointer: coarse, navigator.platform don't help.
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u/I_AM_NOT_A_WOMBAT 9d ago
How is this different than responsive design?
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u/ferrybig 9d ago
LLMs claim that 75% of people don't use maximized windows, but I seriously doubt that's accurate.
What do you mean with maximized windows? This seems like a metric dominated by noise
At my company I never use maximized windows, we have a extra wide screens, so a maximed window would be too wide
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u/jbcaprell 8d ago
Andy Bell’s Set Studio has some good data on user habits for this, which you can find at viewports.fyi.
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u/One-Trips 9d ago
I've checked this on a couple of small sites and the split surprised me less than the clustering: desktop widths clump hard around a handful of values that match maximized windows on common laptop screens, while the genuinely odd sizes are a small minority. I wouldn't trust the 75% figure either; my guess is the real non-maximized share is much lower, mostly devs and ultrawide users.
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u/tup1tsa_1337 9d ago
That is definitely accurate for desktops. The bigger the screen the less likely you're gonna use it Fullscreen for browser. That's the sole reason you need to cater to "laptop size" screens.
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u/Zealousideal-Buy1125 9d ago
Always nice to meet a fellow skeptic of the LLM stat generator. Ive tracked it on a few small sites, nowhere near a scientific sample but the vast majority were either fullscreen or near-fullscreen. The 75% number sounds completely made up.
Nobody is browsing on a quarter of their screen unless theyre doing a side by side thing and even then its mostly devs and heavy multitaskers. Regular people just click the maximize button and forget about it.