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IE6 - To Upgrade or Not To Upgrade

Aug 24

By: Vikki Pickett on 8/24/2009 11:32 AM

I’m a graphic designer, and these days I find myself designing a lot for the web. It’s a process that starts with assessment questions to ask, determining the goals of the client and their needs. Then I study the schematic and research competitors sites. I stay current on best practices, usability and accessibility in design. Essentially, a lot of thought and work goes into creating what is for more and more companies, the core of their integrated communications strategy solution.

When I am finished with my design, I pass my PSD to a developer. They work their magic so the website looks just like the PSD and it functions like it should with a focus on the usability ans accessibility in design

Then comes the test for cross-browser compatibility. This means means that a website works and displays properly in all versions of all browsers. Each new release of a browser version brings the layout differeneces between them closer together.

Expcept for IE6. IE6 doesn’t understand PNG file format for images (PNG supports transparency) or conditional CSS. Chances are good the developer has included a lot of workarounds or hacks for IE6 so the site displays correctly. Cross-browser compatibility isn’t as easy as it sounds. Different browsers can interpret CSS commands in different ways. IE6 especially has it’s fair share of CSS “misinterpretations”.

IE6 was released in 2001. That’s the stone age in computer technology years. So then don’t we just ask all of our clients to upgrade their browsers? Large company’s like YouTube and Digg are talking about phasing out support for IE6 altogether. HTML 5 won’t support it at all. IE8 has been released and It’s faster, more secure, and functions better. Browsers are free downloads, why wouldn’t you upgrade? We can even include javascript in a site so that when it detects an IE6 user, it produces a pop-up window to suggest a browser upgrade. Then our client’s clients can upgrade. And so on...

Users that have the Windows Vista operating system already use IE7 or above. But if the user has Windows XP, they can still be using IE6 as their default browser. I can’t blame anyone for wanting to stay on XP as long as possible before having to upgrade to Vista (or waiting for Windows 7). And, if the user wants to give IE7 a test run on XP, Service Pack 3 must be installed first, otherwise IE7 cannot be uninstalled.

But personal computers are a small part of the market. Sixty percent of companies use IE6 (equaling 15% of the entire market) as their default browser and seventy percent limit/restrict user’s administrative privileges. These companies often have custom applications that may not be compatible with IE7 or IE8 and are reluctant to upgrade. For them, there is the cost of deploying, maintaining, and making it work with their IT infrastructure.

Ok, that still leaves a portion of users that aren’t part of a company and aren’t on Vista. Those users don’t feel a need to upgrade. Should we ask them to?

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