Browser, operating system and screen resolution data for GOV.UK

For people (like me) who develop services where most of the audience is UK-based and non-technical, the GOV.UK OS and browser usage statistics are especially interesting to read.

The growth of mobile/tablet share vs desktop isn’t a surprise but it’s the continuing strong growth of iOS, despite the handset dominance of Android, that is worth noting. We clearly echo the behaviour observed in the US where iOS users browse more.

It’s also clear from the handset breakdown that, in the UK at least, Android is largely synonymous with Samsung.

Again the story here is the rapid rise of “portrait” smartphone screen resolutions such as 768×1024 at the expense of traditional “landscape” desktop resolutions. Further evidence of the rapid shift to a wider variety of screen sizes as mobile device use takes off.

Portrait orientation screens using 768×1024 resolution (probably tablets) now make up over 10% of their audience, higher than the common laptop screen size of 1280×800. If your site isn’t adaptive/responsive and you’ve designed for a >1,000 width screen you’re failing your visitors.

OS usage: BlackBerry 0.7%

Lastly, thankfully, I think it’s time to retire the BlackBerrys from our mobile testing suite.