IE6 is not the User’s Problem
Thursday, September 25th, 2008
Who would have thought I’d wind up a defender of support for Internet Explorer 6? But there you go, as the last few years have progressed my realisation has been that the high usage of this 7 year old browser is simply a part and parcel of being a web developer. I can attempt to educate users, I can provide links to better browsers - but it’s the world at large who don’t give a rat’s arse about web development who get to make that call. They choose not to install a new browser, or not to use the new browser if it’s installed.
Reading an article by Dmitry on Usability Post titled Drop IE6 Support - Give People a Reason to Upgrade I noted a few holes that need to be addressed. It seems a growing wave of web developers, and more worrying for the fact that Dmitry’s blog is focused on usability, are advocating that this is a user’s problem. No, Internet Explorer 6 is a developer’s problem - it always will be.
How much less usable is your website if someone arrives with a browser you choose not to support? How much harder is your information to access if they first have to download another browser? And, is that any different from the user’s perspective to demanding they install Flash or Silverlight or have the latest version of JavaScript? If I go to the council site to find out the next garbage removal day - where does this extra noise for updating a browser fit in? It doesn’t. At that point we’re bad usability people, bad developers. At that point we’re pushing our issues back at the user and demanding they deal with it.
