Do try this at work

Today, RIM unveiled its latest mobile browser. It runs WebKit making every mobile platform except one run that rendering engine. With that in mind, I’d like you to try this experiment.

Last year, RIM bought browser-design firm Torch Mobile Inc. That move makes Webkit the dominant rendering engine for mobile devices with all of the advantages that brings for designers and developers who want to embrace progressive CSS3 properties and more.

On the desktop, Internet Explorer may still be dominant, but taking into account the widening of the overall browser landscape, one that includes Webkit (Safari, Google Chrome, Shira and more), Gecko (Firefox, Camino and others) and Presto (Opera), it’s clear that the days in which we base our designs around the capabilities of Internet Explorer as the benchmark are growing shorter.

Still, every day I hear from designers and developers who say, “my clients won’t let me use progressive CSS it is not supported by IE” and “I will have to wait until IE6 diminishes and IE renders CSS the same as other browsers”. The comments section of any Smashing Magazine CSS3 article are littered with similar comments.

This is depressing for those of us who believe we should be basing our designs on the capabilities of the best browsers and not the capabilities of the worst. But it’s also an argument that can be easily solved if you handle it correctly.

So tomorrow, next week, next month, but as soon as you can, I want you to try this experiment with your clients, whether they be external or internal at your organisation.

Ask them outright,

What would you prefer me to do?

Spend my time hacking around issues in older technologies like Internet Explorer 6 or would you like that time spent making the site look the best that it can on better desktop browsers, as well as on the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Blackberry and a whole host of other mobile devices?

I have a feeling I know what the answer will be, but I don’t have your clients or your day job or your approach to dealing with people. I have my own.

Do try this at work. And please tell me what happens.

Andy Clarke 16/02/10 | Tweet this | Short URL: http://stuffandnonsense.co.uk/s/1290

There have been 21 replies

  1. 1

    michael goddard

    Tried that exact same argument hawever they are going by browser usage statistics that shows IE in the front.

    17th Feb 2010
  2. 2

    Theo

    I actually work on a client site and will use some text and box shadow.However i told him about the differences between browsers and that his site will not look the same in all browsers. He went home and downloaded firefox.Even if this is a very small step in the right direction (hope so) it is one.
    I was impressed by your article on 24ways last year!

    17th Feb 2010
  3. 3

    Richard

    I’m currently devving up a job for another (non web-)designer and it’s gonna be a nightmare in IE6. So I’m glad I wove in a line in the contract which went something like, we’ll design/develop for the best browsers out there - and if that means we end up serving a Universal IE6 stylesheet, then so be it. At this stage, it’s a distinct likelihood.

    The client signed without question. And because I’ve been up front about not wanting to spend time farting about for old browsers, [in this particular case] I have a client that’s happy his money’s being more wisely spent.

    Simple.

    17th Feb 2010
  4. 4

    Micah

    This doesn’t work for small businesses who are suffering financially in this shrunken world economy. My boss is adamant about not losing out on any customers, even Windows 98 and OS X 10.3.9 browsers.

    Since IE6 is still a 10-15% of total customers for the business, it’s unacceptable to ignore IE6. It’s all about numbers and money in the e-commerce business and you can’t leave any customer out who provides value. IE6 still has a large grasp on these kinds of small businesses.

    Business revenue is tight so spending that extra time hacking for outdated technology helps squeeze every penny coming in. It’s a similar reason why some businesses still use older OSes and browsers. Don’t fix what ain’t broke.

    This will likely continue to be a problem for a few years to come as the world starts to recover from this meltdown, but hopefully trailing off by 2012.

    17th Feb 2010
  5. 5

    Matthew

    @micah: using graceful degradation doesn’t necessarily mean the same as ‘ignoring’ IE6. If IE6 doesn’t have drop shadows and rounded corners, will it mean lost sales? Or will it mean you can cut an hour or two off the bill for your cash-strapped client?

    Maybe you’re working on a design where every last pixel that’s different translates into measurably lost sales. But such designs are surely more and more a rarity rather than the rule.

    17th Feb 2010
  6. 6

    Jen

    As a one-person business, I can’t afford to refuse some amount of compliance in IE6 if a client requests it. I don’t offer support as part of my regular fee, but I usually don’t refuse if asked. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t charge through the teeth for it. If the client requests IE6 compatibility, they have to agree to my fee and I write into the contract that the site will be usable but likely will not look or work the same as a modern browser. I don’t think I’ve lost any clients strictly because of this, and I’ve even made a few clients happy by agreeing to add IE6 to my list of “supported” browsers.

    To me, 10-15% of a site’s visitors using IE6 or worse isn’t worth dealing with it. But if someone disagrees with me and wants to pay for it, who am I to tell them how to spend their money?

    17th Feb 2010
  7. 7

    Carissa

    We don’t all get to pick our clients—I work at a university where my clients are professors and department heads who oftentimes don’t even know that what they are using every day to look at websites is called a browser. If I asked them your question, I would get blank stares. They want something that just works (and looks good). If I add enhancements for “better browsers”, I don’t tell people about them—if they can’t see them, they aren’t going to care about them. (And they aren’t going to upgrade even if I do tell them so there really is no point.)

    17th Feb 2010
  8. 8

    Gareth

    Aside from the strange Essay writing sales pitches in the comments (!?), I’m sure this article will strike a chord once again for most designers / front end developers that fight relentlessly to try and get across to people that websites do not need to look the same in every browser!
    I still don’t understand how people don’t understand the advantages of progressive enhancement when they clearly outweigh the disadvantages. Yes, if you want your site to have rounded corners in IE then, fair enough, use images but there is nothing wrong with adding a bit of subtle text shadow, or enhancing the first line or letter of an article with pseudo-selectors.
    Those of you stating that you can’t use CSS3 features because IE is still the number one browser are holding back the web technologies, if you don’t use them, why should IE add them? Start being brave, learn about progressive enhancement/ graceful degradation/ making it work for IE6 and start enjoying using these great features that are being provided for you.

    (This comment was left on For A Beautiful Web)

    17th Feb 2010
  9. 9

    Gareth

    Oh, and see you at Speak the web tonight!

    (This comment was left on For A Beautiful Web)

    17th Feb 2010
  10. 10

    Pete

    Personally, when I do freelance projects and at my day job I’ve been ‘progessivley enhancing’ for a good while. I’ve never seen the problem or the arguement for not doing so. It comes de-rigeour to me and the development team here (and btw, one of the biggest sites we work on (25000+ members) is being re-developed using plenty of progressive enhancements, and IE sits top of the with our users by some margin)

    Our IE users will get a great site, the looks good and works well, they’re happy. Nothing breaks, nothing looks out of place.

    Our firefox/safari/opera etc… users will get the extras such as subtle transistions, round corners, css gradients, @font-face (yes I know IE supports this too) and rgba colour. These elements add an extra level of shine to the site and provide a nicer experience, but they’re not fundamentals. If you don’t see then, fallbacks are in place to ensure nothing looks weird or doesn’t work.

    17th Feb 2010
  11. 11

    Sulcalibur

    I got sacked :(

    17th Feb 2010
  12. 12

    Scott

    I snuck in some rounded corners via CSS the other day (For the sake of saving time of course). We will see if anyone notices. Thanks for the inspiration Mr. Clarke.

    17th Feb 2010
  13. 13

    Scott Galloway

    At a SaaS company, we have a single platform that supports hundreds of clients. This means we are beholden to those browsers that are most in use by our clients’ users. Part of that challenge for us globally is that the answer to what browsers are the most popular differs by region, by user group, or even by brand. For example, a hip new airline’s users trend toward modern browsers, while a large legacy airline’s users tend to not adopt as quickly.

    That being said, the main driving factor for our clients is always brand consistency. They insist on their brand being represented as identically as possible for all users, and their branding guidelines reflect this mindset.

    So I think for large, shared applications, until the global user base adopts more modern browsers, I think we’re stuck.

    (This comment was left on For A Beautiful Web)

    17th Feb 2010
  14. 14

    Tom

    We’ve gone down the route of sneaking in those CSS3 additions - it’s just easier! That, and there are some crazy old IE filters that do some things (simple gradients, box shadow, text shadow…)

    On a side note, I know that a lot of Nokia mobile browsers use very old versions of webkit (I believe it might be the case even on the new phones?), so a lot of CSS3 features won’t work :(
    Still, doesn’t hurt to put them in!

    17th Feb 2010
  15. 15

    Jenifferjn

    Various fields of life take a lot of time, thus why should we waste life time for persuasive term paper creating? It would be easier to use some good custom writing service to order the literature term paper from, I think so.

    (This comment was left on For A Beautiful Web)

    18th Feb 2010
  16. 16

    Chris

    Well, I don`t even try that, because I am the one that knows best that this won’t work.

    Firstly nearly everybody in our company (I work at the online editorial department of a big austrian newspaper) uses Internet Explorer (luckily version 8). That has two reasons: Our CMS runs best with it and the people are simply too lazy to install another browser. Even all the newspaper guys that belong to our group use IE. Because that’s all they need.

    Secondly, and thats even more important, our statistics say, that about 11 % of our users still use IE6 and alltogether IE has a share of about 60 %, Firefox at least beeing on the second place, often even the top browser when looking at the different version numbers not browser families.

    So I simply have no other choice than to have a big look the IE-family. Because if I would use rounded croners, gradients or shadows simply done with CSS no one would see or notize it. And there is no, no, no way to change this.

    Sure, I try best to get the most our of CSS(3) in terms of selectors and stuff that make my live as a web designer easier and I don’t spend too much time developing for IE6. But in the end, it or IE8 or maybe IE7 is the lowest common denominator.

    (This comment was left on For A Beautiful Web)

    18th Feb 2010
  17. 17

    ppk

    I’m sorry Andy, but the fact that BlackBerry is going to go over to WebKit does *not* prove that it’s going to support everything Safari iPhone can do.

    I have no evidence that BlackBerry WebKit is going to support, say, CSS transitions, or offline storage, or whatever. I have no evidence it’s *not* going to support them, either, but the safest gamble right now is to assume they won’t.

    I totally agree with your main point about starting to apply graceful degradation seriously, but right now BlackBerry WebKit is less of an argument than we’d want it to be.

    There is no WebKit on mobile! There’s at least eight of them, and they’re all different. And then we have the two desktop ones.

    (This comment was left on For A Beautiful Web)

    18th Feb 2010
  18. 18

    Andy Clarke

    @ppk: I’m sorry Andy, but the fact that BlackBerry is going to go over to WebKit does *not* prove that it’s going to support everything Safari iPhone can do.

    — I understand that, I’ve read all of your tests and reviews. I have though, found this argument to be very successful in convincing clients that they should be forward thinking in their approach to CSS and design and not looking backwards to a lower common denominator.

    (This comment was left on For A Beautiful Web)

    18th Feb 2010
  19. 19

    ppk

    Oh, so you did try it already? Good to know that it can work in practice. And yes, mentioning BlackBerry is obviously a good thing; should have said that in my first comment.

    BTW, maybe you should add Android to your list. It’s becoming a buzzword, though I’m not totally sure how well it is known among the not-particularly-mobile-savvy.

    Any chance you might post something about proper use of progressive enhancement on mobile? We badly need a designer’s point of view on this complicated subject.

    (This comment was left on For A Beautiful Web)

    19th Feb 2010
  20. 20

    STB

    It’s good way to ask for additional payment for IE6-compatible coding.

    (This comment was left on For A Beautiful Web)

    22nd Feb 2010
  21. 21

    john

    I remember the days of the war between IE and Netscape and how Microsoft managed to get ahead of Netscape and to gain popularity and these days, although there are many solutions available and are way better than IE people are still using it. I can’t really understand why…

    23rd Feb 2010
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