This article and solution around Internet Explorer 6 pitfalls went up last week. I’ve spent the past week thinking of a response to this suggestion.
“When I asked myself why people visit my sites, and the ones that I make for other people, the answer was always “for the content”. Content that is almost always written words and that means type.
That is why I’m now advocating to my clients (and to you), that where feasible, not to waste hours in time and a client’s money on lengthy workarounds in an unnecessary attempt at cross-browser perfection. Instead, you and I should provide simple but effectively designed HTML elements. This means just great typography for headings, paragraphs, quotations, lists, tables and forms and no styling of layout.
Source: Andy Clarke’s For a Beautiful Web
I hate IE6. Frequently, I’ll work on something and it looks great in Chrome, Firefox & IE7. I start up a virtual machine and am hit with a sad hammer when I view the destruction after IE6 renders my code.
In Andy Clarke’s blog post above, he mentions a few different methods to handle this scenario.
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How do you answer the Internet Explorer 6 question?
- Design for better browsers, then design alternative solutions to handle IE6 bugs?
- Write a remedial IE6 stylesheet to address layout issues?
- Use JavaScript to bootstrap CSS support in IE6?
- Make your site look exactly the same in IE6 as in any other browser?
- Develop to better browsers and spend no development time or testing for IE6?
- Block IE6 users from seeing your site’s styles?
Normally, my production method falls under number 1. I make sure my code is valid and semantic, which at this point ensures that it renders correctly in newer browsers. I look at it in IE6 and then often use the underscore hack to correct any issues. Personally, I’m fine with those changes as long as everything displays correctly.
The problem is, until very recently, most of my office was still using IE6 on Windows XP. Specifically, my manager and the directors all were using IE6. This meant that I spent hours trying my best to comply to option #4, pixel perfect match in IE6. Thankfully, most people in the office are using IE7 now, so we are getting close to option #1.
As for Clarke’s Universal IE6 Stylesheet, I’m not there yet. I don’t think you can ignore a browser to that degree until it’s well under 5% of users. Currently, it looks like IE6 is hovering around 15%.
Web developers have spent years circumnavigating IE6′s shortfalls. In the past year it’s market share has been cut in half, so I’m content with just riding it out with option #1 for another year or so. In 13 months, even Microsoft will stop supporting IE6.
Write code that is semantic and valid, make small adjustments for IE6, and wait for July 2010. At that point, I won’t even waste my time with a Universal IE6 Stylesheet.
IE6 hacks need to stop. As soon as the internet looks like crap to an IE6 user they will upgrade.