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How many of you make sure your site is compatible in IE6?

by yourreviewer
6 replies
Hello,
I am building a new salespage and the web programmer did a good job except the site is not compatible with IE6. I read through a lot of forums where designers have pretty much given up the idea of designing the sites for IE6 because it is so complicated and very few people use it.

I just wanted to hear from merchants selling products. Do you make sure that your site is compatible with IE 6?

Thanks
Dan
#compatible #cross browser testing #ie6 #make #site
  • Profile picture of the author Elle Holder
    In my opinion, it depends.

    My busiest site gets 15% of its traffic from IE6 users, so any changes I make to the site are compatible with IE6.

    I think you need to consider your clientele for each site. Are they the type that will have all the new updates on their machines because they are savvy users, or are they people who think Firefox is an animal? If they are in the second category, chances are good they are still using an old computer with IE6.

    I did read recently however, that the projected data states that by the end of 2010, IE6 will be pretty much defunct. I might have read that at w3schools, but I'm not sure.
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  • Profile picture of the author yourreviewer
    If IE6 were to be gone by 2010, I would be really happy. But the designer said that he would have charge $200 for making it IE6 compatible. I am not sure if it is worth the investment. By the way, where do you get the stats of browser type users?
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    • Profile picture of the author Elle Holder
      Along with Google analytics I use a free program called Statcounter. I check my browser stats there.

      And yes, I will be happy to see the end of IE6 as well! Sometimes I forget to check compatibility. I'll make a layout change somewhere, then weeks later think, ohoh, I didn't run that through browsershots. I'll check it and find something out of whack with IE.

      Frankly, I hate all of the IE browsers!
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  • Profile picture of the author SuiteJ
    What is the actual problem that makes it non-compatible?

    Most issues I've had to deal with were visual appeal. The most annoying was the non-compatibility of transparent .png graphics (that I use all he time), but there's a fix for that.

    I stopped caring long ago and haven't had any problems (that I've heard about from visitors anyway).

    I use Wordpress for 90% of sites I build though- even if it's static and not a "blog".

    There's a few plugins that make it easy to warn a visitor when they arrive and also encourage them to upgrade:

    Anti Internet Explorer 6 Plugin for Wordpress | timo-ernst.net | v10

    Shockingly Big IE6 Warning (WP Plugin) | incerteza

    Cheers
    Jay
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  • Profile picture of the author TheAge
    I always make sure my sites are compatible with Internet Explorer 6.

    On a site of mine, 44% of the visitors are using it, so it would be silly to ignore it. I think on average, about 10% of Internet users on the whole still use IE6.

    Adrian
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  • Profile picture of the author SuzanneH
    I used to have the attitude of "well, if people can't be bothered to upgrade from IE6..." But I've changed that attitude! A lot of times people can't upgrade because they're using a work computer (and, oh, boy, do people seem to surf at work!).

    I recently realized my site looked horrible in IE6, and I've been working on fixing it (the bounce rate dropped once I fixed it). Visitors using IE6 represent about 17% of IE browsers coming to my site. That's a good chunk of change!

    I use this website to do my crossbrowser testing:

    Cross Browser Testing. Pick an OS, Pick a Browser, Test website

    You can do screenshots AND live browser testing.

    Suzanne
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