neuro-designs

As many web designers and developers may have known, statistically, IE6 users are dropping day by day, and with Windows Vista along with IE7 installed in most new PCs, as well as those who updates their PCs regularly. But does this mean that IE6 is going to be perished any time soon? No, not if we don’t push the campaign further. And I can’t stress enough on how important this is.

To web-standards developers reading this, I don’t think we need to discuss the matter here. We all know what’s happening. To clients reading this, I perfectly know that sometimes it is hard when users that are actually browsing to your site are stuck in the past, or they are working in an office with an ignorant IT department that does not even issue free modern browsers to their employees’ workstations. And you, as a client, of course wants everyone to be able to access your site without the effort of upgrading their browsers. I’m afraid this is just inevitable, while right now we can still have limited support to even support IE6, the browser is two versions behind (We’re on IE8 right now, if you are sticking with IE) and many major web companies are dropping their support for IE6, such as Google, Facebook, YouTube, etc. If these huge companies are taking huge steps to throw IE6 overboard, why don’t we join their cause? Why don’t we all try to reeducate web users that IE6 is a prehistoric browser, it does not play well with the latest web technologies, and it is hard to develop the same experience you’ll get on newer browsers. Is this what you want your users think of your web? As something that is stuck in the past? I certainly don’t think so.

Does this mean that we’re dropping support for IE6? Not at the moment, we charge additionally if you really need IE6 support and if there’s absolutely nothing you can do but to cater them. But although we still have this service, we never recommend it to our clients as it is not worth it for the both of us. It’s not worth it to invest your money on a dying technology, and it’s not worth it for us to spend time developing for IE6, while we can push the boundaries further for you, if we focus on modern browsers.

So if you’re thinking to move your website to the future, the time starts now. Are you with us?

Some links for further reads:

• RIP IE6
• Two Versions Behind
• Google Tells Users to Drop IE6
• YouTube to Stop IE6 Support
• Facebook Doesn’t really Support IE6
• Internet Explorer 6 Support Ends Here

As our form of participation to the start of the movement of various design and IT professionals to go against IE6 and stopping our support for it, we’ll be installing our own browser upgrade notice to websites that we make for clients who chose not to support IE6. You can see it in action here. The websites incorporating this will auto-detect the browser, and renders this page to visitors using IE6, providing them links to download Firefox, Safari, Opera, or IE7 if you must. In the long run, we hope that this effort would “force” people to upgrade their outdated browsers.

As a news update, as written in a recent article in Wired, even Microsoft supports the anti-IE6 movement. So there seems to be no more reason for users not to upgrade their browsers to the latest standards, and I think we’re closet to that point where we can simply ignore people who protested that websites don’t work in IE6.

I was on a meeting today, and together with our client, we went up to a discussion on why their new redesigned website should support IE6. Yes, you read it right, IE6.

Apparently, although based on worldwide statistics, IE6 users around the world are declining, the number of users visiting our client’s website is swarmed by IE6 users. Most of these are probably and are most likely corporate employees browsing the site using their office PCs. Worse than that, some even still use Windows ME with IE5.5. Even worse than that, some of our client’s clients from countries abroad such as Singapore, still suffer from the same conditions. Not to mention that some free browsing terminals in Changi Airport still use IE6 as well. That’s pretty surprising for the best airport in the world.

So based on this peculiar fact. We came up with several conclusions on most corporate IT departments:

• They usually don’t care about the vulnerability of IE6.
• They try to keep the costs low by using softwares with lower versions (which doesn’t make sense at all, as for example, IE7 is a free update for licensed Windows users, and fundamentally, the IT department should upgrade to better and more efficient equipments over time).
• They don’t want to go through all that hassle on upgrading an office floor full of outdated PCs. This is purely an excuse.
• They simply don’t know that there are many better browsers that conforms to web-standards exist out there. Most of them would just use whatever they have out of the box. This happens a lot when the IT department employees are not filtered perfectly for their knowledge. Lucky for Mac users, Apple provided Safari. And lucky for Linux users, the default browsers are definitely far superior than IE6.

I said to myself, this is pathetic. While the technology that’s been applied to international industries are going forward and the rest of the world is now starting to conform to web standards, most Asian IT departments are just plain too ignorant to even grasp the concept. I can understand if this happens on underdeveloped regions, where downloading FireFox for example is too much of a hassle, they have no broadband connection, or their PCs are just too old to take modern software at their full potential. But when it goes to offices that can afford paying for reasonable PCs with multiple licensed Windows XPs, still having IE6 as their default browsers and ignorant about it is just pathetic. Seriously pathetic.

Therefore, as a design company that relies mostly on technology, along with this post (And hopefully, some of outdated IT departments read this), let me tell you that the internet technology is moving forward, and people are constantly getting themselves connected. This is also the ideal step that your company should plan (Or what you should consider advise to your Board of Directors) since we’re no longer live in the 20th century. So let me help you with this. If your company’s PCs run Windows XP, the least you can do is to upgrade to IE7. It’s free. The second thing you can do is to use more secure and modern browsers, such as FireFox, Safari, Opera, or Chrome. And yes, in case you didn’t know, they are free as well and they don’t add any cost to your IT operations budget if that’s what you’re worrying about.

For goodness’ sake, you are the IT department, you are the ones who should tell your company what modern technology is like. And shouldn’t it be IT guys telling designers what technology is like, and not the other way around?