Redesign Schmedesign: IE vs the World
Sunday, December 14th, 2008
You aren’t lost. This site has undergone Redesign Schmedesign and it’s nearly finished. There may be a few tweaks but the basic meat of the redesign is now up and running. In a general sense there was nothing huge about this redesign except it brought in a few design elements to the same old stylesheets - images, and a few more advanced CSS 2.1 selectors not supported in the lesser browsers like Internet Explorer 6 & 7.
However, this redesign marks a phase of development here that should be noted - pixel perfection between browsers is a MYTH and as such if you are looking at this site in the better browsers you’ll see a predominantly darker design. That’s how it’s meant to be. But if you happen by in Internet Explorer the pages are a lot lighter. You might find you prefer the Internet Explorer experience, it’s not a shabby one, but it will never be the same one. That will apply to some extent for much of our work into the future.
We’re moving from support for the lowest common denominator towards a support for providing enhanced browsers with a better user experience, while also providing quality experiences for our shabby cousin Internet Explorer. The old school methodology made me bored because we were stuck with only basic techniques due to the lesser browsers failure to support even CSS 2.1 correctly. We need to get this industry unstuck and moving forward.
In this strategy the lesser experience should not even be aware of their deficit. That’s imperative. But by providing you with two contrasting designs it’s hoped more people will understand the simplicity of this newer strategy and start adopting it in your own work. It’s faster because you don’t have to resolve cross browser bugs and it’s simple enough to override in an IE6 stylesheet. The thing to let go is that askew idea that pixel perfection across multiple browsers is feasable, desirable or even economical. The reality is that browsers and screens vary so greatly now the 800 x 600 and 1024 x 768 resolutions are a thing of the past. It’s our job to advance techniques to meet the newer market.
