Creating Websites for Outdated Browsers

A common question or debate among web designers is how far back you should code a website to work with outdated web browsers... And everyone has their own opinion. Here's what I've been hearing and my thoughts on the matter.

My Conclusion

I've heard many of the excuses and arguments, but I have come to my own conclusion that developing for an outdated browser that has less then %5 browser usage is unnecessary. (I'm talking about IE6 here, folks. Though IE7 now fits in that category too. [Browser Statistics.] [Just IE Stats.]) Though there are some allowances to my belief of this, and I'll explain those below.

Now my conclusion of this only refers to outdated browsers. So I think that if a browser version is up to date and still doesn't have more then 5% usage (Opera, Safari) that they should still be developed for to the best of your ability. Luckily, browser compatibility is rising among the newest generations of browsers, and it's less of a hassle and a worry to keep everything looking relatively the same.

Allowances

One of the reasons I decided to talk about this subject is because I've recently had to develop for/in an IE6 environment. (Which is somewhat difficult to do properly from a computer running Windows, but even harder when you're running a OSX operating system.) The reasoning or logic that I've concluded to side with for the allowance of building for IE6 for this website was based off of the argument that here in Saskatchewan - in the rural parts - people still have dial-up internet and don't update their browsers. Unfortunately, this statement is true, and therefore, building in this case for an IE6 environment is justified... though often a pain.

Let Me Explain

Aside from these few and far between allowances, I think that building for an outdated interface restricts us from using the knowledge available to us to create truly great websites. I feel that allowing people to view your website in an older browser is sending the message that they don't need to update their programs, that no matter what, we will always design around their inattentiveness. When it comes to technology, I feel that the web is one of the few places that this happens. Computer manufacturers don't downgrade their operating systems (with the exception of Vista to XP, and that was just hilarious) so that you can use a piece of software you bought a century ago, or because you liked that interface more. And software manufacturers don't make their programs need less resources (this has mainly a difference in video games, but the analogy still applied to regular programs) because you're using a computer you bought 5 years ago. No, they expect that if you want to use their system or programs, that you go out and buy the newest video card, or more RAM, and deal with the changes they've made as to how it runs. And the general public has accepted this as the norm. Why not with the web?

Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 was released in late 2001. For its time, it was an alright browser. But in 2011, it is still used by a portion of the web population, and its time we designers stood up.

In conclusion, I think that if designers were to stop developing for IE6 - just plain out refused - that the general public would be forced to upgrade (at least to IE8 guys, I mean... IE 9 is already out, and it's not even a program you have to purchase), and the lives of designers and people viewing the website would be much better. You know how much longer it takes IE6 to load a page when it needs a .png fix or you've had to use hard code such as tables to represent something that would take less coding and load faster with CSS?