First aid for IE no more!

I came across an interesting article today. It suggests that instead of embracing the sloppy way that IE6 handles CSS we shouldn’t provide fixes and let the end-user see the website in it’s ugly state. No hacks, no fixes, no more. They would either have to update their browser to the latest version or install an equivalent in which the website is known to look fine.

I agree with the idea, but in reality it is a lot harder to implement. I shouldn’t imagine clients will be happy with a website that only looks good in certain browsers especially when they know it can work and look good in all. The only perceived benefit to the client would be that their website gets built in a shorter time and costs them less.

The development of the web is hampered by catering for end-users with the minimum system settings. Although Google Analytics statistics for a number of websites I monitor show that 1024×768 and higher monitor resolutions are the norm, I still design for 800×600 resolutions, and we have to ensure any functionality that incorporates JavaScript elements degrade gracefully when JavaScript is switched off. Again, end-users with JavaScript switched off are a minority often making up less than 1% of total visitors to the websites monitored.

We could take a leaf out of the Computer Games industry and insist that new hardware/software is purchased/installed in order for the program to be run, but somehow I don’t think that would takeoff. Until now end-users have been able to access websites without needing to make any changes to their computer setup (except for updates) and so why should things change?

One comment to “First aid for IE no more!”

Whats worse is when the clients are using old browsers and odd settings. Then they demand to have it work on their machine, even when that’s not the norm. Try coming across a client that has their font size set larger in Windows. There’s just no accounting for the weird settings some people insist on using.

Kean at 7.57 pm
on Sunday 12th August 2007