One of the most important issues in accessibility is that of the users screen resolution. Users are now using a broader range of resolutions than ever before, from the old 800 x 600 pixels to the latest widescreen offerings of 1920 x 1080 and above.
The most cited procedure for overcoming this diversity is in using a fluid-based format that adjusts itself to fit the screen but this means that one has to relinquish a great deal of the control of the design of the site. The other option is to use a fixed width approach based on the lowest resolution screensize (generally 800 x 600) which leads to lots of whitespace appearing on larger resolution monitors. Take a look here for a list of all of the different screensizes that may be encountered.
The graph below shows how the market has progressed over the last few years. It can be seen that there seems to be a move from to greater than 1024 x 768 resolutions from the older 800 x 600 (now down to about 14% of users). However, 14% is a large number of users and an accessible website will have to take this into account.
The truth of the situation is that there is no single solution to this problem. The solution is very much application-specific: some sites will suit different solutions. The only thing that is not optional is that all resolutions must be able to view the content.
