Size & fold & toolbars help

We were talking about the fold when designing websites.. meaning anything above the fold gets better clicks, and is better real estate. Our home page for example we moved the item "x" below the fold last week, and the sales plummeted on that part (our highest selling part) then we moved it back up yesterday.

I have 1024x768, and I noticed I can’t see it above the fold, until I turn my “links” and “Google bar” off. Then I started thinking about your average user ( I used my mom for example) she has 3 search bars on her computer (because as we both know everything that you install on the net now a days has a built in search bar download that is automatic unless you UN-check it.

Finally to the question.... Is there any articles that you are aware of that we should look at in regards to these issues, and how we address them? What the actual screen size is? Numbers wise..... are you supposed to design around the bars being thier, and if so how many?







Any help would be appreciated

You should be designing for 800x600 really as there are still too many users that don't even realise they can change their resolution (some who don't even know what it is) and more who belong to a certain age group (that's all I'm saying...) who can't see clearly at 1024x768 anyway.

Unless you're not worried about losing those users, use 800x600.

Nothing you can do about the searchbars or other customisations unless you design the whole site using percentages instead of pixels positioning. That will allow for whatever size browser window the user selects but you'll still lose some content regardless depending on their config.

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Toolbars:-

One thing to tell your Mum about extra toolbars (mentioning specific names is agin forum rules):- Almsot all of 'em are adware / spyware / spam-mail magnets. Electro magnets!
They can be dataminers and key-loggers as well so she might as well invite the script kiddies to send her all their trojans.

Dump the whole useless lot of 'em or at least make sure she's got some top notch filters and uses them regularly.
If she doesn't suffer from the problem already, I venture to suggest that she may well do soon.
I was plagued with it a couple of years ago until someone suggested the cause and it stopped almost immediately when I uninstalled the swines.

thanks for the attempt.... I will try to be more clear

I know that you are supposed to design in 800x600 it still acounts for 10-20% (depending on who you ask) of the users out there.

I was saying i use that size of 1024x768....

moving on...
I am not talking about page size specifics, more of who designs with these in mind?

I guess what I'm asking is how many people have them? What is that percentage? lets say for argument sake that over 80% of people have them, should you then keep in mind that the page fold is differnet for more then half of your people.... 80% of the people will then see a different page fold, thus creating a smaller size then your inital 800x600.....

any places that has looked into this?

Ah, I see.
I don't keep them in mind in that case.
I reckon the people who have them will be used to having a smaller window and expecting to scroll to see the content they will be missing.

i understand that, however should it be designed for.... that first page is the most important

Its one of those things you really can't control. Design your layout to fit in a 800x600 space and that is about the best you can do. You really have no way of knowing the viewport size of any given user. If they have toolbars installed then they will lose a lot of screen real estate. Granted you can install 3 or 4 toolbars and design around that but the viewport begins below those anyway.

go around your work place, or ask a friend to do it if you are not at a place with a lot of computers, and see how many people have a Yahoo/google search bar installed. I bet its over 90%

OMG!
This must be a country thing.
We hate 'em here in the U.K.
They take up space and attract adware.
Most UK companies I.T. dept.'s would hit the roof if they found them on employee systems.