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Ask HN: What is your policy on IE6 development?

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Re: Ask HN: What is your policy on IE6 development?

#21

Post by nkohari »

We're a product company, so it's a slightly different stance. However, we made a conscious decision early on not to support IE6 for the following reasons:

1. Our app is very interactive, and we didn't want to have to deal with incompatibilities.

2. Our target market is (primarily) software developers working for small companies. The only people that use IE6 are people who don't know any better or who are forced to do so, and there are few of those in our target market.

We know that we're probably losing some sales due to our lack of IE6 support, but for the reasons stated above, we're going on the assumption that the additional sales wouldn't offset the cost of development and testing.

I think for a consulting company, it depends on the project. If you're writing something for general consumption or enterprisey software shops, it's much more important (unfortunately) to support IE6.

Re: Ask HN: What is your policy on IE6 development?

#22

Post by julio_the_squid »

We're down to 37% IE these days. Only 8% are IE6, for a total of under 5% IE6 usage.

I don't really know what the difference is between our site and the sites that say they have 65% IE still... it's not at all oriented towards techy type people. We have 45% FF and 15% Safari.

It's a significant enough number of people to test new features with IE6, but not enough to go wild trying to make it perfect. If I was developing sites for clients, I'd go for option #1.

Re: Ask HN: What is your policy on IE6 development?

#23

Post by oneplusone »

Guestlist (http://www.guestlistapp.com) does not support IE6 even in the slightest (except for the public page where you buy tickets, that works in IE6). We support IE7 and higher, and that will probably stay that way for the foreseeable future.

As for contract work, I do whatever the client asks. I do let them know that IE6 support will probably cost them an additional 20% in my time, and it will not be identical to modern browsers. It will work and that is about it. If they want to spend the money it is up to them. They do know their customer base better than I do.

Re: Ask HN: What is your policy on IE6 development?

#24

Post by gte910h »

Let your competitors eat the cost of IE6 dev then

Always charge as LEAST as much as is required to make you either not care or actively want the client to buy a feature

So if IE6 makes the site 2x as difficult, charge them for the site using modern browsers, and line item (basic IE6 testing for at least limited functionality) at whatever price makes you not care.

Charge for them to maintain an outdated site, charge a lot. Then you won't care if they want IE6 support or not

Re: Ask HN: What is your policy on IE6 development?

#25

Post by gte910h »

oneplusone wrote: post #23

Guestlist ( http://www.guestlistapp.com ) does not support IE6 even in the slightest (except for the public page where you buy tickets, that works in IE6). We support IE7 and higher, and that will probably stay that way for the foreseeable future. As for contract work, I do whatever the client asks. I do let them know that IE6 support will probably cost them an additional 20% in my time, and it will not be identical…

Only 20%?

Wow we charge more like 75-125% more for that browser

Re: Ask HN: What is your policy on IE6 development?

#26

Post by oneplusone »

gte910h wrote: post #25
oneplusone wrote: post #23

Guestlist ( http://www.guestlistapp.com ) does not support IE6 even in the slightest (except for the public page where you buy tickets, that works in IE6). We support IE7 and higher, and that will probably stay that way for the foreseeable future. As for contract work, I do whatever the client asks. I do let them know that IE6 support will probably cost them an additional 20% in my time, and it will not be identical…

Only 20%? Wow we charge more like 75-125% more for that browser

This would be HTML + CSS only. I don't do Javascript and if I did, then yes, it would be a lot more.

Re: Ask HN: What is your policy on IE6 development?

#27

Post by pbhjpbhj »

danielh wrote: post #15
keltex wrote: post #8

I think that you have to look at the client's visitor profile before you make this decision. If a client's site sees 10%+ IE 6 visitors (and many of mine do), you can't simply say we're not going to support this technology. Often I tell them that we will review the site in IE 6 and make sure that it's "functional" but we don't guarantee it will be pixel perfect unless they pay for the extra work. Also I don't like th…

I think you are spot on. But maybe you should not look at the visitor profile but at the revenue profile. Maybe the typical IE6 user has a higher probability of clicking on your client's advertising. After all, if your gain from supporting IE6 is higher than the cost of supporting it, it makes no sense to abandon IE6.

After all, if your gain from supporting IE6 is higher than the cost of supporting it, it makes no sense to abandon IE6.

Although is you abandon full support in IE6 and users want to stay and so use another browser then you've kept their continued custom and saved your extra dev costs. That is, it's not a given that removing full support will impact your profit.

Also, the improved design that could be purchased with the extra dev costs could net you more customers using a browser made less than 8 years ago or indeed convert more of the same.

People can have a non-profit motive too.

Re: Ask HN: What is your policy on IE6 development?

#28

Post by christefano »

Well, #1 and #2 aren't mutually exclusive.

In our experience, IE6 users are simply unwilling -- or more to the point, unable -- to upgrade. The people who come to mind are parents whose kids have moved away, office workers, unfortunate souls in school systems or other non-profits that don't have a decent IT budget, etc.

My shop leans towards #1 and will include IE6 "compatibility" separately. This works well for our clients since IE6 is rarely being used by the people that our clients' sites are built for.

Unless we're explicitly asked not to, we use a banner-style alert as a general practice in order to encourage upgrades. We use IE6Update:

  http://ie6update.com/
On a side note, Microsoft's "Browser for the Better" campaign was actually pretty helpful because we could say that upgrading to IE8 was feeding hungry families:

  http://browserforthebetter.com/

Re: Ask HN: What is your policy on IE6 development?

#29

Post by qeorge »

SamAtt wrote: post #17
qeorge wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the same policy we keep at my firm. We support IE6 on all sites, I don't see it as an option. Part of being an expert is making things look easy. IE6 is frustrating, but its our problem. The exception is web applications that aren't public facing. In those cases I think its reasonable to specify that the app will be run in a specific browser, and to charge more if it needs to run in many.

Being an expert is about knowing how to do something not about making things look easy. In fact, things that aren't easy take more time so the last thing you want to do is make them look easy because then your customers will have unreal expectations as far as how fast the work can be done and how much they should be charged. There is a legitimate argument for charging more for IE6 compatibility and I don't see what's…

That's fine, definitely two ways to look at the problem. We charge a higher rate than some shops, because I think our work is worth it, and it includes things like IE6 compatibility. But these are just differentiation points, and there's room in the market for both approaches.

Regarding making things look easy, I've always enjoyed Law 30 of the 48 Laws of Power:

Make your Accomplishments Seem Effortless: Your actions must seem natural and executed with ease. All the toil and practice that go into them, and also all the clever tricks, must be concealed. When you act, act effortlessly, as if you could do much more. Avoid the temptation of revealing how hard you work - it only raises questions.

To each his own.

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