In a perfect world we would all be using the same technology and wouldn’t have to design for older OS/outdated browsers/different OS/different browsers.We wouldn’t have to provide accessible websites because everyone would have perfect eyesight. We wouldn’t have to worry about our navigation systems because everyone would just get it.
But it isn’t a perfect world and some people are still using Windows 95 and MSIE 5.5.
So we can’t leave them out when we design websites anymore than we can ignore people with less than perfect eyesight. And we have to provide idiot proof navigation. I’m not calling you idiots but too many times with navigation we give more attention to design than comprehensive legibilty.
So I ask myself if someone’s Aunt Rose in Nebraska will be able to use this navigation.
We are up against a lot when we take on a new project, the biggest being taste. Our taste versus the client’s taste. Oftentimes a designer’s taste is tempered with the idea that the design ought to be clear and readable first, pretty last. I don’t think client’s want to skip clear and legible but they do often put pretty first. Personally, I believe it’s possible to have both.
Recently Matt of WordPress fame wrote about how the great day when we can all stop worrying about MSIE6 in applications or website design is upon us(actually I think he was only talking about applications).But because I do not author applications I focused on design.
So if you have signed up with Google Analytics, if you haven’t you ought to, you can see what percentage of your visitors are using IE6. If no one is using IE6 you can probably stop worrying about IE6. Lucky you.
I wish I could stop designing for IE6. But if I check Google Analytics reports for most of my website’s profiles (Visitors>Browsers>Browser Capabilities) sadly IE6 makes up almost half of the graph.
The Website’s Content Makes Design Decisions For Me.
Products or content that draw an older audience who likely have not upgraded to IE7 let alone IE6, have got to be presented in a design that IE5.5 and IE6 can render.
Many times this group won’t have the right version of the flash plugin needed so you might not want to make a flash website for this audience.
Older audiences tend not to upgrade as fast we’d like them to.
I don’t intend to stereotype older people. But in the long run it’s more important to consider what happens to eyesight when someone gets older and how that affects their experience when they come to the website I’ve designed. We have to provide legible, high contrast sites that an older audience (not as able to read small text with low contrast colors) can read. We can’t require them to download a plugin in order to see the website because chances are if they are coming to the website for the 1st time they will just leave if they get asked to download a plugin.
A Solution.
Many times when I am working on a new project I develop it on my own server. It can take weeks to complete.This gives me time to sign the client up with Google Analytics and install the tracking code into their existing website. After 24 hours I will be able to check what browsers are the top ones being used and I can factor that into my design.