Do we really still have to support IE6?
Brian Sullivan, Technical Director
I can’t even count how many times I’ve been in this situation: I finish some great piece of functionality for a project. It has all the bells and whistles. It functions well and looks even better. Then I test it in Internet Explorer (IE) and it all falls apart.
This isn’t an IE-bashing post. Nor is it a list of IE6’s myriad shortcomings. For better or for worse, IE is here to stay. And IE6, the worst of the worst, is here at least until 2014. But just because Microsoft has committed to keeping IE6 on life support until then, does that mean we must do the same?
The short answer is yes. The long answer is ^%&$* *&^#%!!!....(plaintive sigh)… yes.
Despite the best efforts of those who would like to bring down IE6 now, despite the fact that IE6’s market share is in freefall, and despite the fact that Google has dropped the hammer, IE6 (as of this writing) still commands more market share than Safari and Opera combined. But we’re getting close to the tipping point where we can finally put IE6 in the same category as these other things that were popular in 2001:
IE6 users: Who are these people?
I’ll admit there must be some people who made a conscious decision to stick with IE6. Not many, but they’re out there. Maybe IE7 interferes with their other software – or maybe they’re just trying to be retro. There are also those who are happy with their Pentium II running Windows 98, ME, or 2000 and can’t upgrade, and those who are running Windows XP but skipping browser updates because they are on dialup.
But the largest segment of IE6 users is corporate IT departments who won’t upgrade. Whether they’re putting it off because of cost concerns or because their company intranet only works on IE6, corporate users are the last holdouts. After office hours, IE6 usage drops by over 50%.
The solution? Know your audience
So, how can you determine what level of IE6 support to offer? By answering one question: “Who will be accessing my content?”
If you’re building an internal reporting dashboard that will be viewed only by corporate users, just find out what browser they’ll be using. If you’re rebuilding an existing site or have access to a site with a similar audience, you can learn everything you need to know from your server logs or analytics platform.
Otherwise, you may be able to make certain assumptions about your audience based on the type of site you’re running. For example, if it’s a tech blog, your visitors may skew in the Firefox direction. But if it’s an online store for plumbing supplies, expect to see more IE6 folks.
What you absolutely shouldn’t do is not check. If your site looks terrible in IE6, that doesn’t tell your users, “We’re so cutting-edge that we refuse to support outdated technology.” It tells them, “We’re sloppy.”
Support, don’t enable
We can’t quite drive a stake through IE6’s heart yet. But that doesn’t mean we have to give it the same attention we give to… *cough*… real browsers. In fact, most IE6 users are probably used to things not looking quite right. There’s a point at which rewriting a whole section of JavaScript code, adding CSS hacks, or dumbing down your site to accommodate these users just doesn’t make sense.
If IE6 users can access your content, fill out your form, and do whatever else they came to your site to do, then you probably shouldn’t bend over backwards to make sure they have an identical experience to non-luddites. In fact, it might even be a good idea to prod them a bit.
Categories:
- Best Practices
- Trends
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Brian Sullivan, Technical Director Brian is the technical director of the Ozone Online engineering team. He's worked for seven years managing web marketing for a group of luxury hotels before joining Ozone Online. He brings a plethora of knowledge to the team, including database driven dashboard and application development. Email Brian. |
