DPD Browser / Platform Stats

We’re in the middle of a pretty big overhaul of the DPD user interface right now. Because we want DPD to work for the vast majority of our users (and their customers on the cart and delivery pages) we keep a close eye on our visitor platform / browser statistics.

We don’t compile statistics for individual stores or sites (and don’t want to)- these are aggregate numbers across every product, delivery page, cart, and the DPD site itself.

I thought I’d share some basic usage statistics with everyone so they can get some insight in to their fellow vendors as well as the visitors that purchase from their sites:

Platform / Operating System (top 5):

There are really no surprises here.

1. Windows 85.94%
2. Macintosh 12.49%
3. Linux 0.78%
4. iPhone 0.38%
5. iPod 0.12%

Browser (top 5):

The Browser stats were interesting to us with Firefox being used more than Internet Explorer among our users and buyers.

1. Firefox 46.40%
2. Internet Explorer 36.17%
3. Safari 8.24%
4. Chrome 7.09%
5. Opera 1.60%

Screen Resolutions:

When designing an interface your user’s screen resolution is vitally important- DPD is currently 955px wide to accomidate a 1024×768 resolution monitor. After looking at these statistics we might start thinking about targeting the 1280×1024 width, giving us approx. 220 more pixels of width to work with (about 22% more space).

1. 1024×768 22.50%
2. 1280×800 19.31%
3. 1440×900 11.01%
4. 1280×1024 10.34%
5. 1680×1050 8.54%
6. 1366×768 4.73%
7. 1920×1200 3.30%
8. 1920×1080 3.11%
9. 1152×864 2.48%
10. 1280×768 1.73%
11. 1600×900 1.53%
12. 1280×960 1.35%
13. 800×600 1.35%

Digging Deeper with Windows

With 85.94%, Windows is far and away the most popular operating system on DPD (and with the entire world). Another thing we have to keep a keen eye on is what Windows and IE version everyone is using- There are drastic differences in how things are displayed between different IE versions and spending time making it work in all of them is something most designers dread.

Windows Breakdown:

From these numbers we can tell that less than 1% (0.54% to be exact) use a Windows operating system older than Windows XP. Vista and Windows 7 are slowly taking over though, with 40.81% of the total.

1. XP 58.22%
2. Vista 27.86%
3. 7 12.95%
4. Server 2003 0.43%
5. 98 0.24%
6. 2000 0.20%
7. ME 0.06%
8. 95 0.04%

Internet Explorer Breakdown:

The most critical stat for interface designers and developers is the IE version statistics. There are entire sites dedicated to designer’s hate of IE6, and IE7- while slightly better- is not loved much at all either. IE8 it approaching standards compliance and reaching parity with the Webkit (Safari, Chrome) and Gecko (Firefox) rendering engines, so we’re happy that the majority of our users are installing the free upgrade from Microsoft.

1. IE 8 56.36%
2. IE 7 31.89%
3. IE 6 11.66%
4. IE 4 0.09%

Occasionally we’ll get a support ticket about having to horizontal scroll to see the entire DPD web page, or about transparent images not displaying correctly in Windows 98. We don’t really have a good reply for these people other than to urge them to upgrade their browser or operating system.

Seriously folks, if you’re using IE6 please go upgrade to IE8– it’s free from Microsoft, more secure, and renders the entire web better. Or try a new browser- DPD actually looks better in Chrome, Safari, or Firefox because of the additional CSS properties these browsers support like rounded corners and drop shadows! All three alternates listed are available for both IE and Mac and are free!

As developers of a service that serves thousands of vendors, tens of thousands of customers, and hundreds of thousands worth of transactions a year we can’t focus our time and energy on the 0.46% of our visitors and shoppers who are using a 12 year old operating system like Windows 98 with IE4- it’s not fair to the other 99.54% of our users who use modern operating systems and browsers and would be better served by us developing new features and improvements.

We hope this was an interesting look at some statistics behind DPD. If there is any interest in future updates we might make a post like this again in the future- let us know what you think!