Don’t Stop Supporting IE6

August 6th, 2009

Planning to drop support for IE 6? Instead, redefine “support” and stay positive.

Yes, creating cross-browser experiences can be painful when support for Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) is required. There are dozens of hacks to get around certain issues, and it is possible to design experiences that are functionally identical on IE6 and more modern browsers. It may mean designers don’t have carte blanche, but that should be fine if their companies or clients mandate full IE6 support. Any good experience designer can work within constraints and still kick ass.

Still, a lot of folks are lobbying their companies, clients, and partners to drop support for IE 6.

My issue is how they’re doing it. The more dickish folks are throwing up an insulting roadblock, patronizing IE 6 users.

A more practical approach is to encourage users to upgrade with prominent, consistent notices. This angle isn’t terrible, but still alienates users and disrupts the experience for those users almost as much as a modified or “broken” IE6 experience. It’s just not friendly, or consistent with the brand message that usually mandates an identical UI across target browsers.

Another Option: Boring but Practical

My suggestion is to take this to the contracts. Redefine the word “support” as it applies to user agents (like browsers). Look at the cost/benefit of all types of support for all types of user agents. This should be a part of your business modeling.

Instead of refusing content to IE6 users or breaking brand guidelines by disrupting their experience with a patronizing notice, why not relegate them into a tier of Content-Level Support as opposed to Design Support?

Good sites already do this with a stylesheet for print: we don’t penalize printers for their lack of a good box model. The same is true of screen readers and most RSS readers. Maybe you can think of IE6 as a perfectly viable user agent for consuming content, but cost prohibitive for rendering top-tier experience design. Serve your print styles to IE6 if you don’t want to offer design support. Or serve a basic white-on-black stylesheet. Or no stylesheet. Pretend IE6 is the Googlebot or JAWS or any other non-graphical user agent. Just don’t punish people or talk down to them.

Channel Your Frustration Properly

You don’t have to be a dick to your less-endowed users. Shift them, officially, to a tier you, your clients, your company, and your partners agree upon and move on. Just make sure you’ve built an economic model that includes the IE6 users and estimates the cost of all possible decisions. Look at the realities of IE6 users of Digg to understand the complexities facing the people your cocky designers and lazy developers want to patronize or abandon.

Justify relegating IE6 with real numbers or choose to give it design support and force your designers to work within the constraints. They do get paid to work, after all. If they can’t create great experience design that doesn’t fuck over the people coding those experiences, fire them. Hire designers who understand browsers.

No matter what you do, keep your users’ needs first. They’re the ones you can’t replace.

A Great Resource

A few months back, I started up a GitHub project to create a baseline CSS file for all legacy browsers. Around the time I got contributions from folks at work, I found out about similar (but completed) projects out in the wild. One such project can be found here: http://code.google.com/p/universal-ie6-css/.

  • Gustonez
    @reshe:
    1) now tell me that some companies still using ie5 or ie4 and we should live with it! That is not a reasonable reason, we are not in 1990's, if they want to browse the internet then they need a compatible browser, or else, no need to upgrade and and keep using ie6 on their localhost (intranet).
    2) that's what ITs are for, call for support.
    3) LOL they deserve it!

    As web developers, to stop special scripting for ie6 is our first step to move on. MAN there are too much fun using new tools and scripts, why we should waste time fixing Microsoft's bugs!
  • (excuse my English) Your idea is interesting, but the truth is that the persons that use ie6 are not handicapped and the comparation with a printer or rss feed .... NO, this is a browser on a working computer with a working operating sistem on witch the user can install diferent browsers.
    I can think of only 3 reasons they still use ie6, and this is from my experience with the users and the people that are using computers:

    1. They work in a company that have old version of windows (and I mean even windows xp with no updates) and don't want to update windows, don't understant the reason but that is their problem

    2. The users have no idea how to upgrade, have no idea how to download other browsers have no idea what internet experience means
    So for this users it's a very good idea to put a disclaimer that lets them upgrade or download a better browser.

    3. They have a crack copy of windows and can't upgrade.

    4. I did say there are only 3 but this is a special one:
    are too lazy to give a click

    So yeah let's beat our head against the wall to make special code for this special handicapped users
  • Despite I do not agree with the reasons you think developers and designers are dropping support (it's not just because they're lazy, frustrated or angry. It's mostly because IE6 is old and is holding the web back), I don't think dropping IE6 completely is a solution at all.

    This is something I've been willing to do for quite a long time now: leave the content intact for IE6 (and, at the same time, create myself a pretty print stylesheet for other browsers) and have the design bits handled by modern browsers properly.

    There's two major problems here, though: The first one is that clients do NOT want this alternative most of the time. Understandable, but annoying.

    Second one is that IE6 is not THAT broken that it requires a completely different stylesheet. Yes, everything is emssed up and you probably need to spend a lot of hours making it look properly, but it's still not as broken as to completely drop support for it.

    It's a hard choice, and it needs to be addressed properly. Sometimes you'll have to support IE6, sometimes you won't. That's life.
  • If we need to find a business reason to encourage users to stop using ie6, it is "risk". ie6 has a host of problems that have been addressed only in subsequent browser releases and not in patches.

    I'll even offer that supporting a browser with such deficiencies has a subtle but aggregating effect on user trust w/regards to the web or my website. So if I'm the security department of, say, Facebook - I'll be looking to discontinue support of ie6 solely to maintain the trust and perceived integrity of my site alone.
  • So I think there are 2 issues here. I agree completely with you on graceful degradation wherever possible. The real issue is the QA and additional development load that IE6 brings for any javascript heavy site.

    Sure, they have the option of just the html - and I'm a big proponent of semantic html - but a lot of applications are beginning to move away from the old page-based semantic-content paradigm.

    If I consign IE6 to the same level of support that I give to lynx then I am essentially dumping all testing of IE6 - but to ensure that it doesn't try and fail to execute any javascript then browser sniffing is a reasonable option.

    And @DZ - I haven't used facebook in IE6 for a while, but for a long time they simply did not support it - especially around the time of the redesign.

  • […] Big Contrarian → Six. An optimistic view of the likelihood of IE6 going away. To which I say: yes, but if the corporate intranet applications all break under IE7 (not unlikely), it’ll be a cold day in hell before the poor users ever see a real browser. (tags: ie6 browsershare) […]


    This comment was originally posted on Big Contrarian

  • IE6 is awful, but there’s a downside to righteous indignation. Here’s a more positive approach to dealing with it: http://bit.ly/rpr0U.


    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

  • dismissively makes the wanking gesture


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • I think you're making one logical leap there - and it's in part my fault. The bit about times new roman... You can provide a completely pleasing, simple, elegant interface to textual and image content with very little work in a basic CSS file.

    The way I always handled the netscape problem was to create a baseline CSS file: background color, type, etc - the stuff you can do in 15 minutes and not as much override as augment for modern browsers.

    Then, @import the more advanced stuff.

    I think you can accomplish a lot through that approach, without having to do the work for IE *plus* adding a banner or nag.

    It's not so much about ignoring it. After all - as I conceded in a prior comment, you could always display a general purpose, none-IE6-specific message to users of *all* outdated user agents saying, "For a richer experience, view this document in a modern browser like FF or IE8."

    It's the banner and nagging - especially when added to an already functional IE6 site - that screams "bandwagon" and probably won't be effective. A full interstitial roadblock is just brand suicide and requires work for three user agent groups:


    - Modern, rich browsers.
    - IE6 - singled out for no good reason
    - Outdated or less-rich user agents


    I bet it's a safer business decision, and definitely more in line with your philosophy of doing less work around IE6, to simply fold IE6 into the outdated UA pool and move on - with or without a generic message for all non-rich UAs.

    The gamble is up to each company, of course. I just don't want anyone thinking that an effort made specifically for IE6 counts as less work.
  • Maybe you handled things during the Great Wars a bit differently than I did, or how I remember other's handling it.

    Back in the old days, we were able to effectively "hide" our new fangled stylesheets from NN4 by attaching them via the @import property, which it ignored. We did not, or at least I did not, code a specific style sheet just for NN4, or other non-standards-sort-of-compliant browsers.

    Generally, my NN4 style sheet, as well as many other's I can remember, contained a rule to specific show and make prominent a note about the need to update the user's browser. And that was it. We would hide this block in the style sheets aimed at modern browsers.

    There was also a very concerted campaign (WaSP, etc) to encourage and advocate for the use of modern browsers. Badges like they were going out of style, posts, advocacy groups petitioning the browser makers, etc etc.

    The fact the campaign worked should speak wonders for how we should treat our current predicament. Hell, I'm of the mindset that every 4-5 years, we'll go through this whole song and dance again.

    Regarding the business decision:

    After all, if those people aren’t worth addressing or supporting, why would you care what browser they use?


    Because they aren't worth addressing not because of some inherent flaw in their personalities or who their friends are, but because they're using an old browser and costing me time. I don't hate them, nor am I ignoring them, I just can't be bothered to support their browser. But hey, if they upgrade we can all be friends again! And I really really need friends. It's very lonely here.

    Would their upgrading to IE8 make them a thriving part of your customer base?


    Who the hell knows. Maybe.

    If so, is the effort of upgrading the best place to spend your time/money?


    Who the hell knows. Maybe. The message is a one shot deal, that I can throw up and be done with. If it encourages some user to upgrade, there is a good chance they were honestly interested in my site or business enough to endure the hassle. And maybe once they're upgraded, they'll come in and buy a bazillion million widgets from me.

    It's a gamble.

    Have you completely maximized your main audience?


    Probably not. Hence why I'm not spending time worrying about dealing with a minute percentage of my audience's poor browser choices. I have other people to tend to who are demanding all sorts of weird things I need to go spend time on.

    By the same token, I don't know that these IE users wouldn't be great customers, if only they upgraded. So I send a little note and see if they bite.

    And if your goal of selling browser upgrades is more than dogma and is about converting the last outliers on the web who aren’t using your service, which of the four options that I listed will you take to message them?


    Anything but option 4, which basically presents a broken site, no explanation for why it's broken, and leaves it as an exercise to the visitor to sort out that they're seeing Times New Roman and lots of unstyled ULs not because my site is broken, but because their browser is.

    In terms of a technical solution, Toby, I think you're right, and it's a very elegant and simple way to handle the IE6 problem. It just doesn't so much handle it as ignore it and hope's it goes away.
  • @meego - "Many who know nothing about computers or the web will think that’s all there is to the website and never return."

    I've been thinking about that angle a bit. I understand the gut reaction there, but I'm having a hard time reconciling a few thoughts.

    First, the obvious: any existing IE6 users won't get that impression. They are already using your site (in IE6 no less), so a banner telling them to upgrade their browser seems a little misplaced. "Hey, upgrade, because, even though I already did all the work to support IE6, or kept my UI compliant with IE6, I am on a mission to spread the gospel."

    For brand spanking new users on IE6, or for all users after a redesign, things make more sense. Still, what are your options?


    - Completely block access, interstitial-style. Show them a nicely-designed, friendly upgrade message and refuse them access to content until they upgrade. This seems like a lot of work. Probably more work than serving them a basic, but attractive stylesheet.
    - Design something that works with IE6, but show them a banner at the top of the page urging an upgrade. This is the same situation as with existing users: you've already done the work of supporting IE6 at a design level, so the upgrade nag message seems like misplaced effort.
    - Serve a "broken" experience but with an upgrade notice. If you're looking to make a good impression, this seems like a bad idea.
    - Serve a plain stylesheet with basic brand guidelines in place (color, type, legibility) as you would do for a screen reader or other outdated user agent.


    If you have more advanced features, or want to tout your fuller design experience, I can concede that option #4, which is what I am advocating, could be used to let new users know there are alternate, richer views of the content for modern browsers.

    A lot of people (like Jack at Big Contrarian) talking about this post say IE6 users aren't worth the effort to their businesses. I don't care whether that's true or not in any particular case, but if you take it on faith, my option still seems to be preferable.

    After all, if those people aren't worth addressing or supporting, why would you care what browser they use? Would their upgrading to IE8 make them a thriving part of your customer base? If so, is the effort of upgrading the best place to spend your time/money? Have you completely maximized your main audience? And if your goal of selling browser upgrades is more than dogma and is about converting the last outliers on the web who aren't using your service, which of the four options that I listed will you take to message them?

    I can't help thinking this whole "Ban IE6" banner thing is impotent dogma lacking in real business modeling. Next up, we all change our Twitter icons green to save Iran!

    Back with Netscape 4, the winning method was to serve a plain "nn4.css" baseline stylesheet to people and serve more advanced styles and scripts to modern user agents. Turning the web "plain" is enough vinegar to convince the stubborn to upgrade while being decent to those with no choice in the matter.

    To quote Jack, "Why this time is so magically different is beyond me."

  • RT @bbx Un gars veut encore supporter IE6. Butez-le bon sang! http://bit.ly/FLSPF


    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

  • Good point. It's important to work from the end user's standpoint. After all, we are working towards their experience as ux designer/developers. I think your philosophy is from the same vein as the folks at Yahoo.

  • But the vast majority of mobile devices still run crappy linearizing browsers. You’ll still need a mobile version for them.


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • Thats what we thought at first too, (as a b2b startup) – except that if they as a company haven’t moved on past IE6 they are not very likely to adopt new technology in general – including the startups products.I wouldn’t push for banning IE6 if you are selling a non-tech product, but if you are a tech company and have a feature IE6 holds you back from implementing or are losing time to supporting it, dump it.


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • DZ
    @meego: "There is no excuse not to upgrade. If IT depts can’t support multiple browsers, they need to do some internal cleansing bc they suck at their jobs."

    IT depts sometimes can't help it. I have friends who work at places where *corporate* technological progress is glacially slow. Especially in large companies that exist in non-tech sectors. IT personnel *personally* want to upgrade, don't doubt that. But personal -- or even departmental -- wants and needs don't always align with corporate budget and priorities.


    @peter "But with more and more browsers supporting things like canvas and video, and more and more javascript reliance, it’s getting less and less feasible to provide even ‘content support’."

    If Facebook, who powers nearly everything with javascript, can offer a relatively content-rich experience for browsers without javascript, you can too. Just like all support, 'content support' has gradations. You don't need to have or present content the same way for everyone.

    You're already presenting content different in various accessibility contexts. This is just another view of your content you need to consider. Maybe you decide it's worth it, maybe not. But don't dismiss the possibility out of hand.

    And to nitpick on HTML5 video for a second, even without IE6, you'll need to consider support. Since HTML5 (currently and for the foreseeable future) does not specify a container format, the typical site serving HTML5 video will need to encode their content in mp4 *and* ogg *and* probably wmv to maintain comparable compatibility with Flash players.

    At that point, creating a flash player fallback that reads H.264 isn't much further down the path.

  • no, you are definitely not at fault for those things. however, you are at fault for re-contextualizing this particular comment thread. the original comment spoke of alternative interfaces, not of outdated software, cheapening the discussion with snarky remarks about anachronistic technology. though, plenty of people still use telnet. and physical help desks.


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • Jack Shedd on IE6 http://twurl.nl/4m0kwp, responding to Toby Joe’s interesting but ridiculous article on the topic http://twurl.nl/ubzaic.


    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

  • RT @sanbeiji: Good blog post about IE6 support. Provide content, not exact experience. http://bit.ly/rpr0U (via @jdowdel & @stefsull)


    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

  • Good blog post about IE6 support. Provide content, not exact experience. http://bit.ly/rpr0U (via @jdowdel & @stefsull)


    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

  • I’m afraid I’m not at fault for your lack of clarity, poor grasp of the context of the discussion, or anti-social need to put words in someone’s else’s mouth to make a cheap shot.


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • Lindsey Thomas Martin
    Give them the semantic web but not the expressive web?
  • There is no excuse not to upgrade. If IT depts can't support multiple browsers, they need to do some internal cleansing bc they suck at their jobs. For everyone else, I would like to politely encourage them to upgrade to a better browser rather then give them a feed reader version. Many who know nothing about computers or the web will think that's all there is to the website and never return.
  • Very good article. My thought exactly. Yes, HTML5, canvas and video (though video support is sneaking in now, it's not yet the "same support") and other goodness is coming down the pike -- it's honestly still going to be a while before we can use it for business sites.

    Handing IE6 users content (whatever level of "design support" your client decides to pay for) is most important. There are plenty of users without a choice. Why block them from the content? All content for all user agents -- always what I strive for. The experience may vary.

    Excellent, pragmatic post and what I teach when I speak and train.. :)

  • “Don’t Stop Supporting IE6″ focuses on vague term “support”: http://tr.im/vNYA Offer them a basic experience, like screenreaders or devices.


    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

  • They have a "Donate" link and no options for support I could see – It doesn’t really inspire you with confidence.Being a Microsoft Certified Partner just means some of your staff have passed some MS exams and you paid MS some money.


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • JFGI: "firefox MSI".And before you say but it has to have proper support, yadda-yadda. They’re an MS Certified Partner and an established company based in Pennsylvania – if the MSI is messed up you should be able to sue them for losses or pay them for support.


    I’ve never used nor do I have connection with this company – caveat emptor.


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • Can’t someone perform an A/B test to see what IE6 users are like?A quick peek on a webapplication ive got google analytics for shows that they spend 8 minutes per visit on the site but the average is 10 minutes.


    A peek at another static site that mainly make money on adsense show that IE6 users click on less ads. However, going by this measure I shouldnt care about FF at all since eCPM is terrible there.


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • Is anyone really suggesting going back to the days of blocking on sniffed UA? I don’t think so.When people say "not supporting IE6" I think they mean no longer doing browser specific bug fixing – that’s what I mean. Provided the majority of textual content is viewable I consider IE6 done (ditto links2 my only currently tested text browser). If text is not viewable (as in an MS site I visited recently with IE6!) then the client has to pay a little extra if they want to up the support.


    Graceful degradation is surely the lowest level of support any designer will accept, no?


    So I’m targeting XHTML1-trans and CSS2.1 with enhancements for JavaScript and CSS3 capabilities.


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • My monitor is broken and will only cope with "low pixel" modes so I’m using it from the console (on another comp). I’ve been using links2 for a couple of weeks now – it’s amazingly good for a text browser, a few annoyances (no tabs, have to use a second console; no way to cut and paste text and links (mouse not working either!)) but on the whole quite usable. Particular I like the way it gets PNG absolutely right whilst IE hasn’t even managed that in IE8 (strictly they did it by the book just they implemented it differently to the other browsers, very MS).


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • I'm hoping I just did my last IE6 fix - now I tend to give them the same support as any other browser that can't do CSS or images properly (eg lynx). The fix was simply to switch off a code block.

    Yes I could have fixed it, no I didn't want to, no I don't think the client should bother paying to support any particular browser only particular levels of standards compliance.
  • Peter - You're right about new elements and IE6 being dead. It's no different than scores of outdated or otherwise non-capable (where graphics, media, styles, and scripting are concerned) browsers.

    If canvas elements are vital to your content and it would be misleading or unacceptable to serve the textual and image content without those elements, by all means, shut out IE6 at the gate.

    My point is simply that you shouldn't target IE6 and its users, but rather treat the entire *class* of legacy or handicapped user agents consistently.

    If you have a heavy JS/AJAX application you probably already gave up on printer, lynx, screen reader, feed, and google support. Just toss IE6 into that class (along with NN4 and IE4 and Mosaic and...) and treat them all as below your baseline.

    Calling out IE6 as a special case and talking down to IE6 users is the problem. The solution is to just toss it into the same bin as other baseline (or, in your case, below-baseline) user agents.

    For (what I hope is the final time!) I am not saying to bend over backwards for IE6! I'm just saying that, if you don't want to put in the work and make the concessions required to support it graphically, treat it however you'd treat any anonymous, low-powered user agent. If you're doing it out of novelty and not necessity, I also recommend modeling the impact to your user base.

    Simple!

  • Cross-posted from my comments on the blog itself:I think the reason for the recent high-profile assault is not zeal on the part of the people actively decrying IE6. They just realize that sometimes, to make change happen (especially change this “drastic”) is to make a lot of noise. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.


    They want people to stop using it, instead of just refusing to design for it for 2 reasons (and maybe more):


    1. As web designers/developers, we are passionate about people having a beautiful and pleasant web experience. If we just stop developing for IE6, everyone who hasn’t dropped it may have a lesser experience, which just wouldn’t do.


    2. Many of them may be forced to support IE6 by their respective powers-that-be, so the only way they can stop actively supporting (designing for) it is by getting a significant amount of people to stop using it.


    I agree with you in general. I am never a fan of over-zealousness and pushiness, but sometimes that’s the only way to get things done.


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • I think the reason for the recent high-profile assault is not zeal on the part of the people actively decrying IE6. They just realize that sometimes, to make change happen (especially change this "drastic") is to make a lot of noise. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

    They want people to stop using it, instead of just refusing to design for it for 2 reasons (and maybe more):
    1. As web designers/developers, we are passionate about people having a beautiful and pleasant web experience. If we just stop developing for IE6, everyone who hasn't dropped it may have a lesser experience, which just wouldn't do.
    2. Many of them may be forced to support IE6 by their respective powers-that-be, so the only way they can stop actively supporting (designing for) it is by getting a significant amount of people to stop using it.

    I agree with you in general. I am never a fan of over-zealousness and pushiness, but sometimes that's the only way to get things done.

    Thanks for the thoughtful article.

    Oh, and that speckled background had me wiping my screen for a good 5-10 seconds, trying to get the dust off. :D

  • No, but for large windows installations based on active directory it’s the only one they can easily manage. Other browsers need to provide an MSI installer to make it easy, though after 5.5 years of asking, Firefox still doesn’t have one:https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=231062


    Also lots of people need IE for ActiveX based intranet webapps – people seem to have a real mis-understanding of the real issues.


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • ars

    That’s exactly what I do: IE6 must work, but I don’t care how it looks. And it looks bad – mainly because of lack of support for transparent pngs (and I don’t care to play with the workarounds).But also things are not always in the right place, etc. But everything works.


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • But with more and more browsers supporting things like canvas and video, and more and more javascript reliance, it's getting less and less feasible to provide even 'content support'.

    There needs to be a strong incentive to upgrade.

  • Internet Explorer isn’t the only browser out there.


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • And does this mean we are going to drop other browsers that have had replacements 3 years ago or more? Like Firefox 1.x, Opera 8 (version 7 is on the Wii), Safari 1.x etc.


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • Again, what he’s really suggesting is this: <http://forabeautifulweb.com/blog/about/universa.... He’s just chosen to introduce it with a poor first paragraph.


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • Many mobile devices now use WebKit based browsers and easily kick IE’s old ass.


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • The idea they have been holding back for 8 years is wrong. IE7 came out in 2006, that’s 3 years.As is fairly normal people didn’t switch to another browser because they were happy with what they had. They just haven’t updated their version in 3 years, which is pretty normal with other types of software.


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • feel free to read through this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man and re-read my reply to jsonscripter’s comment.


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • Not supporting someone who hasn’t bothered to update his/her JAWS in the last 8 years doesn’t seem completely unreasonable.


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • Many sites don’t really have anything worth printing. And if they did, few people use the print version unless your main version really is that awful. If you are already making badass mobile support (which includes A LOT of crummy old browsers on many many phones), you might as well save the effort of a print version.


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • Continue supporting IE6 ? http://tr.im/vMKW says yes … and oddly I agree : make content readable (don’t design for it). (via @bbx)


    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

  • Stephen - please reread the post. You are agreeing with me. If you have the ability to give up on *design support* for IE6, go for it. But continue to provide *content support* for it, as with any outdated other user agent.

    You and Rob are reacting the the headline and ignoring the content, it seems.

    Rob - unless you're forcibly *blocking* IE4, you are *supporting* it.

    It's all about the definition of "support" and the abandonment of dogma, fellas.

  • Nah, serve something closer to a print version and focus some real time on badass mobile support!


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • What is the cost of serving them a plain jane experience, as you do with a printer or feed reader? If you can model your audience and quantify the impact (in other words, prove your theory) for your audience, why BLOCK THEM? Just give them the content, minus the design. Spend the same amount of time you spend on your print.css file.Anything more restrictive than that is not about income, as you suggest – it’s about dogma.


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • Un gars veut encore supporter IE6. Butez-le bon sang! http://bit.ly/FLSPF (via @bbx)


    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

  • If they haven’t upgraded to something better yet and it’s FREE to replace and has been for years, what are the odds that they will pay for your service.Seeing as the majority of IE6 users are in the enterprise market… I’d say the odds are pretty good.


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • Rob
    Sure. Let's support IE4 while we're at it.
  • Agreed. We should also make sure that I get a comparable experience with all modern games on my 8 year old computer.

    No, I'm sorry, websites are software. While I completely understand your perspective here, if you are using out of date technology to access that software, your experience should be, if not completely curtailed, then limited so that the engineer doesn't have to build in code that will, inevitably, make the experience slower and buggier for *everyone*.

    If you think we're just patronizing or dismissing IE6 users, you're missing the point. As of the 27th of this month, IE6 will be 8 years old, just a little bit older than Windows XP--and even Microsoft isn't supporting that operating system any longer. And they wrote the damn thing.
  • bbx

    Un gars veut encore supporter IE6. Butez-le bon sang! http://bit.ly/FLSPF


    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

  • There is definitely some bombast there. I’ve been fed up with folks displacing their frustrations onto users instead of getting creative and practical with the issue.I’ve been in this game a long, long time and I saw (and, admittedly, took part in) the "insult and block" approach with Netscape 4. Looking back, it was immature, cocky and lazy. I hate seeing people repeat the same childish mistakes. Instead, we can build an economic model to decide how to classify each user agent for each property we control and act accordingly. It’s not emotional or dogmatic – just practical.


    To paraphrase a reply to a comment on my site:


    I think my approach helps bring innovation while continuing to support the people stuck on less modern user agents.


    Reclassifying IE6 into the category of feed readers, screen readers, and printers is a perfectly viable solution.


    Oppose that to the childish antics behind blocking content based on user agent.


    In each case, you get to provide interesting experience design for modern user agents, but only by reclassifying IE6 for content support do you also retain (some portion of) the IE6 audience.


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • I’m starting to sound like a broken record:Serve your mobile version to IE6 users.


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • Hi, Allen. I think my approach helps bring innovation while continuing to support the people stuck on less modern user agents.

    Reclassifying IE6 into the category of feed readers, screen readers, and printers is a perfectly viable solution.

    Oppose that to the childish antics behind blocking content based on user agent.

    In each case, you get to provide interesting experience design for modern user agents, but only by reclassifying IE6 for *content support* do you also retain (some portion of) the IE6 audience.

  • Do the numbers. If you think the money you save in development costs is greater than the cost of pissing off or alienating IE6 users than go for it.Just hope your competitors are as picky about their customers as you…


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • The tone is overly-bombastic, but there’s the seed of a good idea in here. Getting the a consistent look in FF3 and IE6 is Sisyphean; making a IE6-only layout much easier.The author recommends dropping the whole "one app, one look" conceit and shuffling the dinosaurs to a dinosaur pen, with a simpler layout and the same content (you have been separating content and presentation, right?).


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • What a crock. Not being a dick to people let them sit in their stupid comfortable IE6 for the last 8 years blissfully unaware that they were holding back advancements that would make their lives better. If I try to run new software on Windows 95, it will slap me in the face and tell me to slag off. The same should hold true for the web.You go ahead and spend time delivering content to IE6 Toby, but I’m going to hop on the bandwagon that was far too late in coming and continue to tell these people to slag off until they upgrade.


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • While you do make some valid points, unfortunately you are missing the bigger picture. This isn't about lazy developers or designers trying to get away from delivering content to a laborsome agent. The real issue lies in the fact that requiring IE6 support stifles innovation. This is becoming more and more true with the advent of HTML5. Internet development cannot progress while IE6 remains a major player in the browser market. The anti-IE6 campaigns aren't so much targeted at the end user as they are indirectly at corporate IT managers, pressuring them to abandon their IE6-forced client desktop computing environments for more current, standards-based options.

    Obviously this is a very dynamic issue that requires a personalized approach for each individual organization, but the bottom line is that an 8 year old technology can no longer remain an influencing factor if Internet experiences and interactions are to evolve further.

  • Cost: Extremely highBenefit: Non-tech savy users can check out my tech business


    Are IE6 users the kind of people that will buy your product, utilize your social media, read your content? If they haven’t upgraded to something better yet and it’s FREE to replace and has been for years, what are the odds that they will pay for your service.


    Quality of eyeballs matters more than quantity of eyeballs, and I would say that the people running IE6 are rarely the target market for tech businesses.


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • absolutely. and JAWS. oh wait, assistive tech. and accessibility don’t fit into your [glib] analogy?


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • Anecdotally, I used Lynx just the other day to find a howto on fixing an issue with x.org I was having. Go lynx!


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • How about redirect users to the mobile version of your app if they use IE6? http://bit.ly/11aKZi


    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

  • or even lynx for that matter!


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • In fact, I believe we should support telnetters too. Hell, we should all have a help desk set up so that people that don’t have a computer can call us up and interact with our web apps. Any good designer should be able to work within those constraints and still kick ass.


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • HNews: Don’t Stop Supporting IE6 http://bit.ly/nPd0M


    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

  • All IE6 users should be blocked until they upgrade from any and every site. Zero tolerance of terrible browsers.


    This comment was originally posted on Hacker News

  • Redefining “Support” for IE6: http://bit.ly/FLSPF


    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

  • I wish they would do away w/IE6 & IE7, it would make QA so much easier! RT @tobyjoe Redefining “Support” for IE6: http://bit.ly/FLSPF


    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

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