I haven’t written a technology-themed entry for quite awhile now. At least, not in this blog anyway. But then at the moment that my portfolio blog is out of commission1, I decided to write this here.
While I was checking my email, I received one of my daily newsletters from Sitepoint and stumbled upon this particular article: How to Stop Wasting Time Developing for Internet Explorer. The words “Internet Explorer” alone immediately dawned upon me that even after almost a decade of the web designing and development community advocating for all users, businesses, and organizations, there are still a lot of stubborn users, businesses, and organizations who decided to become stubborn lazy asses and stick with the outdated2 abomination that we all know as IE.
I’m one of the few self-proclaimed designers (developers?) who still have to resort to the old and the outdated. I still use a six-year-old laptop which is still up and running (although slower compared to the latest systems today), still using Windows XP3, and using early CS versions of Adobe4 whenever I work with graphics. I still use the handy Notepad++ to do most of my coding with some assistance from Artisteer, SiteGrinder 35, and various WP frameworks like the Ultimatum Theme and Thematic6 as well as pre-made tweaked templates such as Themify.me and Elegant Themes. Even if that was the case, outdated OS or not, IE is still a web designers’ and developers’ atrocity. Goodness, who on earth still uses IE, let alone IE6?
I think there are many of us web designers/developers who are dedicated to using just one browser and yet we have more than one browser installed in our systems. Aside from Firefox, I also have Opera, Chrome, RockMelt, and Safari. I have a habit of switching browsers whenever I’m having a bad day on a particular one. So far among those, I’m still attached to Firefox. 
I wish these stubborn “old world” fogies should realize how much we web designers and developers have to keep up with the latest trends. Before, we had to keep our markup structures validated whenever we use XHTML and CSS. Today, we now have the advantage of doing a whole lot more thanks to HTML5 and CSS3. On top of that, since not very many people are sticking to the desktops and the laptops and are now chillin’ at their cellphones, iPads, and tablets, we designers and developers will now have to consort to Responsive Web Design.7 As you know, none of the current mobile devices have IE installed or have IE as the default browser8, let alone having IE6 all the way up to probably IE8 are even compatible to the latest standards of HTML5, CSS3, and of all things, RWD.
Sticking to the decades-old default isn’t just bad and outdated for the technology standards of a business, it’s just simply bad for their business altogether. You can lose potential customers that way if you don’t even avail your internet presence to the general public except for the ones who have the same principle as you. Either that or maybe some businesses were just too cheap to pay their IT department to have all their systems updated, let alone paying an external IT service firm to have them updated. It’s already common sense that technology updates very fast— and I mean very fast. Because of that, we have to do all we can to keep up. Unfortunately, not all of us have the money to keep up with the trends, therefore the logic for that would be to upgrade to the latest when it’s the right time to upgrade.
Sadly, that doesn’t apply to websites and the overall internet presence.
The article I read from SitePoint did give me pointers on what to do should I ever get a client who would request for a web project that would be compatible with the older browsers. The program I’ve been testing, Artisteer 4 RC2, would be a good tool for me to use. The program generates a template (I’m talking about this version by the way) that is compatible with all browsers from IE6+ to getting that same template responsive. Like this new blog theme I just made, for example. It should be compatible with IE6+ (well, I don’t have IE6+ anymore installed so whatever LOL) and I already know that this theme is indeed responsive. It works on my reader tablet and it works on my phone. Too bad the Google Web fonts can’t be read by my phone’s browser because it’s a BB LOL.
Well then. Enough rambling. Back to working on the Q*Bee quilt!
- Seriously, I’m going to make a better portfolio layout… [↩]
- and in some cases, dangerous and vulnerable to hackers and spybots out there… [↩]
- Though my laptop is Windows Vista ready, I heard about the icky news about Vista so I didn’t even bother upgrading [↩]
- CS2 to be exact [↩]
- it’s a gift! [↩]
- Thanks SitePoint for the book, although it’s somewhat outdated now because we’re all for Responsive Web Design now… [↩]
- Let’s just call this “RWD” in this case… [↩]
- Unless if you have a Windows phone? I don’t know what Windows phone has, so I can’t really say… [↩]
September 28, 2012 @ 6:57 am
IE should cease.
I recently just designed this website for a client. It was my very first design job and I wanted to make it good.
So I was happily designing, when I went over to meet the client one day and she showed me how the site looks in IE.
Horror.
I had to go home and tweak the site until it looked good on IE. What a waste of my time.
September 28, 2012 @ 2:55 pm
I haven’t had a client like that before. So far my clients (all relatives LOL
) were a lot more updated than me, let alone the type of browser they were using. An uncle of mine was really critical because he wanted his architectural firm responsive because his partner would be working a lot from his phone and iPad. Some months later, a client of his complained to him about his website not “properly working” and wasn’t able to view their gallery. Turns out the reason why was because that client was still using IE6.
I felt bad at first, then my uncle was like “Not your fault. Who uses IE6 nowadays? It’s like 2010 already!” Ah, people.
Even with the hoopla of the IE9 and above it’s still pointless for me because I’m still stuck with Windows XP. You have to have Windows 7 and up for you to be able to use IE9 and above. The eff is that?
Thanks for stopping by my blog though! Good to have you here!
September 29, 2012 @ 11:53 am
I’m studying up on wordpress and taking this design course online so I can get clients. And I’m already scared about the fact and horror of internet explorer.
My mom has to use it for work.
I’m getting my Grandpa away from internet explorer the horrible browser. And onto Firefox.
I do not see the fondness of internet explorer.
September 29, 2012 @ 2:21 pm
One of the things I learned from reading that SitePoint article I linked to this post was that you make a note in your contract that any other requests the clients want should cost extra. It’s required anyway per design practices. Check out GAG (Graphic Artists Guild) Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines for all the details. I wish they had an eBook version, I have a very old edition of that same handbook.
Anyway, if a client requests for you to design to make it compatible to IE6 and such, that would be an extra cost for the client. At least with that, it should convince the client for them to upgrade (which is for free anyway LOL
) to the latest or make them switch to other compatible browses such as Firefox or Chrome. If you think about it, this makes sense. Upgrading for the most part is free compared to providing an extra charge for those clients so you can design something that would be compatible to something that’s long gone outdated.
It’s never too late to plan things. I wish you well!