Should designers stop supporting IE6?
Don’t you hate it when you’re working on a site, and you finish fighting with CSS, resolving disputes between Firefox and IE7 so everything is perfect, and then you jump over to IE6 only to discover that everything is totally screwed up? I’ve just finished some coding on a site, and I’m so sick of having to deal with IE6. Why are so many people still using it? Nick at Web Designer Wall has made the case recently that we should stop supporting IE6 all together:
Stop using IE hacks on your sites and let them see the ugly side of IE6. Eventually, they will find a better browser (ie. Firefox) or at least upgrade to newer version of IE.
Do you agree?
With all due respect to Nick, and as frustrated as I am, I think this is a rather short-sighted and selfish approach. Sure it’s a royal pain to put in conditional CSS statements and PNG hacks because IE6 doesn’t understand PNG transparency, but do we really think that just leaving out the hacks so that users see the “ugly side of IE6″ will convince them to upgrade their browsers? No, it won’t. I’ll tell you what it will do: it will make them head for the back button quicker than you can say “Bill Gates”, and on to a competitor’s site who IS customer/reader focused and who understands that many of these people who are still on IE6 don’t even realize they need to upgrade. They may not even have a choice, as they surf the internet during their lunch at a company stuck in the dark ages, or they might even know there is a newer version out there, but haven’t the slightest clue as to how to install it.
Obviously, there are some conditions under which you could easily drop the hacks:
- the site’s target audience/customer is tech savvy.
- your stats tell you that only a small percentage of your audience is still on IE6. Who cares if close to 40% of people are still in the browser dark ages. The only stat that matters is what browser your visitors are using.
- leaving out the hack isn’t going to disrupt the user experience that much anyway.
If you don’t want to have to deal with all those hacks, then don’t design a site that uses transparent PNGs or requires conditional CSS. I’m as frustrated as the next person with the snail-like pace at which people are upgrading their browsers, but it’s just part of the job. We’re not designing web sites for US, we’re designing sites for THEM. What are some other ways we can push people to upgrade?
This article was written by Randa Clay. Read more about design, marketing, blogging, branding and all things creative at RandaClay.com.
To answer the question, NO.
To those who would answer yes, don’t be some elitist designer only designing for yourself — that is the worst kind of designer. Design for you audience and the lowest common denominator (look at your stats to determine that responsibly).
By Martin Ringlein on August 16, 2007 6:54 am
You can’t stop supporting IE6 yet. On one of the larger sites I work on IE6 makes up something like 40% of our users still. In the real world you just cannot say to a client or user “get a new browser.”
By beth on August 16, 2007 7:55 am
As long as Windows 2000 is still being used in companies, you can’t stop supporting IE6 yet. And there still are many companies who haven’t upgraded to XP (SP2), which is required for IE7.
By Franky on August 16, 2007 8:07 am
I would say that not supporting IE6 is as bad as only supporting IE6, perhaps worse.
Accessibility isn’t only about people differences, it’s about technology difference as well.
By Andrew on August 16, 2007 8:51 am
Don’t you think that the inadequacy of IE6 is blown out of proportion? Sure, it has some flaws, but I find that most of the time you can get around them easily without even using any hacks.
By Imar on August 16, 2007 8:57 am
We musn’t forget that we live in the 1% of web users who actually know what IE6 is. Your average user / web site visitor will be unsure what a ‘browser’ actually is - let alone what version numbers are. All they want is the info they came for - presented well.
If the thousands of office users still stuck in IE6 under a tight IT policy find sites with crazy layout issues - their first thought won’t be ‘Damn IE6 - why can’t you process CSS rules properly’ - they’ll just think either their computer is broken or the website they are on is up the spout. Ditching IE6 hacks completely is far too idealistic - but a lovely thought.
By Paul Burgess on August 16, 2007 9:29 am
Thanks for all the comments so far… Imar- I agree with you to a point. It really just depends on what you’re trying to do. Most of the time the differences really are manageable. Besides just the extra time, what I find most frustrating is being unable to take off with the transparent PNG thing. It opens up a world of possibilities, but I guess I’ll just wait a while to explore them for the most part.
By Randa Clay on August 16, 2007 11:11 am
Our team goes to an extreme to support a wide range of browsers. However, we stopped supporting IE6 8 months ago. Recall this is about the time Microsoft made it easy for the general user to upgrade to 7 as part of their normal OS updates.
It has to happen sometime, and it will happen sooner with a push. “IE6 is the new Netscape 4.0″ It is not hard for users to use a modern browser (regardless of their religious denomination).
Anyone who has tried to push the user experience to a new level, or innovate with current standards knows that IE6 is feeble and consumes significant resources relative to modern browsers (Safari included).
By Steve on August 16, 2007 3:19 pm
Point well said. There is nothing more nerve racking than supporting IE6 in your CSS, but you definitely need to take your audience into account when deciding to drop support. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that even Tech-savy sites have a large percentage of IE6.0 visitors. My site has 16% IE6 and 24% IE.
By Blake Brannon on August 17, 2007 9:09 pm
I seriously contemplated simply ignoring IE6. (Hey, what you can’t see won’t hurt you!)
Of course I had to come to my senses and realize that not everyone is as perfect with the internet as us web designers are ;)
By Lara on August 25, 2007 1:29 pm
Hey!
Im a webmaster. I hate ie. Period. I surely cannot go and tell people that thei are idiots to use IE6, but what I can do and what I do, is I put an little nicely designed warning on top of the website that says that you could see much more and get much cooler experience when using browser that supports new features. Noone wants to use old software and they all wanna see much prettier picture! and they usually understand that when they see a gray picture instead of transparent, its their fault :) No setbacks so far.
By Villu on September 6, 2007 2:16 am
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By మీరు ఇంకా IE6 వాడుతున్నారా? ఎందుకని? « వీవెనుడి టెక్కునిక్కులు on January 24, 2008 5:25 am
IE6 needs to die at some point. If everyone stops supporting it then it will go away faster. I think when a user hits your site you should check for ie6. If they are using ie6 then you should display a huge FireFox ad say you need to change browsers for a better experience. If all sites did this then a lot of people would change to FireFox
By evofuse on March 25, 2008 5:25 pm
Hey guys, I’m running a campaing to stop IE6, cos I think it’s high time now for people to upgrade to a decent browser and say goodbye to that nightmare called IE6.
Check it out!
http://www.stopie6.org
Feel free to leave a comment! thanks
By Matteo on April 5, 2008 6:36 pm