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“But The Client Wants IE 6 Support”

smashingmagazine.com

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Re: “But The Client Wants IE 6 Support”

#71

Post by iamben »

We tried to drop IE6 support for an ecommerce client recently. But looking at analytics, IE6 customers are still doing 5 figures a month in revenue. The client just can't risk the potential lack of conversion in a site with a 'graceful degradation'. The testing that's gone into making it convert as it has must apply across all the major browsers from which they get traffic.

Shame, it's a complete pig to develop for.

edit: They must look and behave more or less the same. Personally I have no qualms about the IE users not seeing rounded corners on some boxes. As long as they're in the same place and the same colour, etc.

Re: “But The Client Wants IE 6 Support”

#72

Post by zbuc »

elektronaut wrote: post #57
TamDenholm wrote: post #6

I'm a web developer, whenever a client asks me about IE6 support, i enthusiastically tell them i'll happily support it. I then show them usage statistics for IE6 and tell them IE6 support costs a flat fee of £10,000 and let them think about it. No client has ever taken very long to decide its not worth it and none have ever taken me up on it, although i'm sure 1 or 2 have asked a different developer to make them an I…

I haven't had a request for IE6 support in years, but if I got one I would say something like: "No, I will not do IE6 support for you. You've trusted me to solve your problem in the best and most efficient way, and supporting IE6 would be a waste of your money (and my time)."

Unfortunately, some (very large) corporations still use IE6 across their organizations and require you to support it.

Re: “But The Client Wants IE 6 Support”

#73

Post by jwallaceparker »

We explicitly don't support IE on our heavy JavaScript web app.

Users get an alert saying, "Use Firefox or Chrome. If you want to use IE and are upset that you can't, let us know."

Nobody has said anything about it.

I think so much depends on your audience. Our audience is writers using their own computer. They're happy to use Firefox and Chrome.

I only see IE6 support as a problem for people on corporate machines who don't control their own software.

Re: “But The Client Wants IE 6 Support”

#74

Post by gte910h »

drcube wrote: post #64
gte910h wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English does have a genderless singular pronoun: They Just because a book said it was preferred in 1848 to use he when sex is indeterminate (then went on to use both singular he and singular they) doesn't mean that's true today. The language always used both. Why stop today? Might feel a bit odd at first if you're not used to it, but it's not a bit different than how singular "you" is used ("You are coming today?" us…

"You" started out plural. "Thou" was the singular version. Then "you" started being a form of respect, similar to the royal "we" or the Spanish "usted". Finally, we all became "you"s, sort of how we all became "sirs and madams" and "ladies and gentlemen" when those were originally a select class. Anyway, "They" has been undergoing this process for a few centuries now, and I concur that it's time to embrace it.

>Thackeray's use of both forms demonstrates. "The alternative to the masculine generic with the longest and most distinguished history in English is the third-person plural pronoun. Recognized writers have used they, them, themselves, and their to refer to singular nouns such as one, a person, an individual, and each since the 1300s."

I don't really think it's an evolution, as much as the mid1800's tendency to over classify and striate things going away.

Re: “But The Client Wants IE 6 Support”

#75

Post by jdavid »

Who are these clients and why are you not firing them?

You run a business, they run a business, and everyone is trying to make money. How much money do you think an IE6 user has? the browser is like a decade old. It's why we target iPhone and not Android in the mobile world. ( because iPhone users out spend android users. )

Tell your client the truth, tell them that you keep up to date on the latest trends and if they want to use someone else let them, and then tell them exactly what your work will do.

I would not even offer to support IE6 anymore. Maybe IE7. There are a few reasons.

#1 you can't download IE6 legally any more

#2 you can't install it legally on linux or mac systems to test.

#3 IE7 in quirks mode does not work exactly the same as IE6.

#4 web development for legacy browsers is less about building things, and more about working around problems. and i just don't find that fun.

It is your duty as a web professional to turn down this work. Microsoft does not even support his browser anymore.

Re: “But The Client Wants IE 6 Support”

#76

Post by jdavid »

jdavid wrote: post #75

Who are these clients and why are you not firing them? You run a business, they run a business, and everyone is trying to make money. How much money do you think an IE6 user has? the browser is like a decade old. It's why we target iPhone and not Android in the mobile world. ( because iPhone users out spend android users. ) Tell your client the truth, tell them that you keep up to date on the latest trends and if the…

when i was running the site http://unity3d.com less than 1% of our visitors could not properly render an html5 doctype.

Re: “But The Client Wants IE 6 Support”

#77

Post by FuzzyDunlop »

gte910h wrote: post #49
seabee wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we had genderless pronouns we wouldn't have to care about details like that which don't materially affect the article or its criticisms. Having said that, fields with a more even gender ratio have had to deal with this for a while - what do they do?

English does have a genderless singular pronoun: They Just because a book said it was preferred in 1848 to use he when sex is indeterminate (then went on to use both singular he and singular they) doesn't mean that's true today. The language always used both. Why stop today? Might feel a bit odd at first if you're not used to it, but it's not a bit different than how singular "you" is used ("You are coming today?" us…

It surprises me that this has to be highlighted. I wouldn't genuinely know if it's a difference between British and American English but I've never encountered a British trend of using gender specific pronouns - or the unilateral usage of feminine pronouns in favour of masculine ones - in place of the neutral forms.

It is one of those niggles that irks my pedantic self though; particularly the politically correct change to using 'she' instead of 'he' (instead of the perfectly neutral 'they', and even 'one').

Re: “But The Client Wants IE 6 Support”

#78

Post by notatoad »

TamDenholm wrote: post #6

I'm a web developer, whenever a client asks me about IE6 support, i enthusiastically tell them i'll happily support it. I then show them usage statistics for IE6 and tell them IE6 support costs a flat fee of £10,000 and let them think about it. No client has ever taken very long to decide its not worth it and none have ever taken me up on it, although i'm sure 1 or 2 have asked a different developer to make them an I…

this is the correct way to approach the problem, because it puts the client in control. if you tell them flat out that you don't support IE6, they will see that as a deficiency in you or your agency. you need to let the client feel like they are making the decision to not support IE6.

Re: “But The Client Wants IE 6 Support”

#79

Post by prodigal_erik »

sampo wrote: post #51
tomgallard wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not just car rental companies. Most of the UK's major banks use IE6 still. This is because most of their intranet apps will only work in IE6, and they have the size to demand that their supplies support IE6 too. Corporate IT policy won't allow browsers apart from IE. If only Microsoft allowed side-by-side installs of IE6 and a IE8 it might be a bit more bearable (given that IE9 is not available on XP)

> This is because most of their intranet apps will only work in IE6 How did it ever happen that IE6 ended up in such a long lasting and dominating position? Was it (I am just guessing here) the coincidence of tho things: (1) IE6 just happened to be the most recent Microsoft browser around the time when most of bigcorps initially build their inter/intranet apps, and (2) because this was the first wave of building such…

It happened because short-sighted and sloppy authors failed to use progressive enhancement over a pure HTML version that worked on every browser ever to exist. Instead they picked one browser they liked, wrote bogus code that happened to work on it, and declared "if you aren't running what I'm running, fuck you". In five or ten years we're going to be hearing the same kind of whining about how the Chrome and Firefox holdouts are holding back Web 5.0, blaming user agents when it's their own bad authoring at fault.

Re: “But The Client Wants IE 6 Support”

#80

Post by jodrellblank »

JacobAldridge wrote: post #48
seabee wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we had genderless pronouns we wouldn't have to care about details like that which don't materially affect the article or its criticisms. Having said that, fields with a more even gender ratio have had to deal with this for a while - what do they do?

I tend to just be lazy and put "the OP" instead of he/she/it, although you could nitpick me on that as well since the author of an article posted to HN is often not the "original poster" in question.

"OP" roughly meaning: "walk up the comment tree, including comments and authors, all the way to the article and whoever submitted it, stop at the one I'm talking about, which should be pretty clear from the context of what I'm saying".
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