The Head of Fred

IE6 (A.K.A. The Internet’s Ex-6irlfriend)

Posted on 26. May, 2009 by Fred in Miscellaneous

I’ve got to hand it to Microsoft – when they set out to make a mark, they don’t use disappearing ink. Moreover, like the name of an ex-girlfriend from the (now regrettable) past, the characters “IE6″ sit emblazoned upon the figurative bicep of the Internet in jailhouse-blue ink. To add to that constant reminder, let’s say the Internet keeps running into this ex-girlfriend (named IE6) and despite the Internet’s best efforts to move on, its friends (in particular many web developers like me and you) continue to perpetuate a relationship that was outgrown years ago.

We all know how this story should end, but we keep saying “not yet, you’re not ready to move on. Sure, it’s been almost 8 years since the two met, but we don’t think it would be smart to shut IE6 out of your life. You really need to support IE6. It’s the right thing to do.”

What terrible friends we are. If we really cared, we’d be doing something to help. Instead, we’re feeding into the dysfunction that is the IE6 browsing experience. We cater to it, spend extra time dealing with bugs and dropping in CSS hacks to satisfy a still-somehow-significant portion of site visitors.

I just have question for all of us to consider – if we don’t put our foot down and say “No, I don’t have the time to cater to IE6 in my projects”, then will we ever truly move on? Shouldn’t we gently guide IE6 users to a better browser? How bad could it be? Keep in mind people are getting update notices all the time, so upgrading is painless. Here we are, experiencing technology revisions faster than ever in history, and then we have a single version of a single browser, a veritable square wheel on the information superhighway making life miserable for the collective web development community.

Do the numbers matter?

On average, IE 6 accounts for as low as 5% up to 15% or more of the visitors to websites that I have analytics hooked up to. I don’t disagree that a figure like 1 in 10 or higher is a statistically significant number when looking at website visitor metrics. That could represent a hefty portion of your revenue, for example, if you are in e-commerce. How about at least taking a closer look at what the quality or potential ROI is on a given IE6 user? It may become apparent that the potential loss of revenue is inconsequential or at worst only a small temporary issue. The truth is, we could sit here and split hairs all day long about the economics of supporting IE6 (which I’m sure would back me up, but feel free to out-number me on that one), or we can acknowledge that the time has past, and enough is enough.

How do we make it happen?

I personally think the solution is pretty simple, but it requires a tactful approach. If we can present users with a non-annoying suggestion to upgrade to a more recent browser with a link for their convenience, I’d be willing to bet they wouldn’t be too adverse to the idea.

As I was researching for this article, I took the time to Google this very subject and found an interesting initiative started in Norway that has spread to many other countries to do this very thing. Here is a link to an article in Wired (Feb. 2009): Norwegian Websites Declare War On IE6 – Pretty inspiring from a country whose full wartime mobilization number is less than the number of loyal Microsoft employees armed with unlimited free energy drinks and potentially-lethal optical mouse lasers.

I think it’s time to stop building to satisfy IE6. Instead, on any given page, detect browser version and present IE6 users with a smartly-worded choice of new browser. I think IE6 users will thank us. If we are the ones suffering at the hands of IE6, why don’t we take action instead of just complaining about something we can actually fix – simply by choosing not to do it?