Progressive Enhancement is dead
Design for the best browser available, use the latest and greatest techniques and degrade gracefully from there on. Don’t be shy and add JavaScript workarounds for bad browsers.«
Amen. This is what Eric Eggert suggested lately and he is totally right. Don’t spend too much time on making your site look good in IE6 and IE7. They will die. Spend your clients money reasonably, that means in future proof browsers.
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Hal wrote 1012 days ago · #
Very well said.
New browsers get the new cool stuff, like transitions. IE is stuck with no transitions,but still retains function.
The problem is when your client(s), and even their customers, are all using IE and could care less about updating to a new browser. Then the special, webkit/firefox/opera only features will never be seen.
Josh wrote 1002 days ago · #
In a perfect world…
Too many times I’ve heard “don’t worry about IE6” then, soon as the client sees it “Well, they have to use IE6…so just make it not look broken”.
It’s
almosttime to safely not care about IE.Matt wrote 979 days ago · #
Only in a perfect world. Ie6 is still out there and must be addressed on a project to project basis. It would be irresponsible to ignore it.
Travis wrote 965 days ago · #
I couldn’t disagree with your post more. I manage the UX for a 10 year-old dot com that has 3 million visitors each month. 6% of our visitors still use IE6, and that trend is flat over the past two years. IE7 usage is at 30% and trending downward sharply, largely due to the widespread use of IE8. No matter the trends, we see 6%-8% usage of old browsers.
Sure, in a perfect world everyone would use Firefox or Chrome ,but we live and work in the real world where the majority of users — excuse me— people, don’t even know what a browser is.
Missy wrote 946 days ago · #
I couldn’t disagree more with this viewpoint. From the client’s perspective they will want you to produce the best design for the browser(s) THEIR customers use the most. Even if the client favours (say) Safari or IE9, it doesn’t mean that their customers do; never forget how many poor users are forced to use older versions of IE – during working hours at least – because of corporate IT support. Progressive enhancement is far from dead; but many web designers have no idea how to establish what is best for the client AND the client’s customers.
What does need to change is the very blinkered view that some clients have of what is right or wrong for their customers.
Christoph Zillgens wrote 943 days ago · #
I never suggested not to support old browsers, but first design for the newest and then for the older ones. There are far too many people having the restrictions of IE6/7 in mind while designing or building a website. CSS3 helps a lot to make better websites and bad IE is no reason for not using it in Firefox or Safari or Chrome.
Of course we have to care for our client’s customers and the browsers they use. But there is also a high percentage of people using modern browsers. Supporting them first is future proof. Why should Firefox users have to download multiple images for rounded corners although Firefox can handle this with CSS? Use CSS3 for that and if IE can’t handle rounded corners, no problem. And if you really need it in IE, use a bit of Javascript to achieve it. You can to it with many CSS3 properties.
Progressive enhancement means to care for the lowest denominator first and then for the better ones. If you do so you treat the older browsers better than the new ones. This is wrong, do it the other way around: Graceful degradation.
Missy wrote 943 days ago · #
I see your point but look at it from the commercial perspective. Let’s say that during a given time period, IE6 counts for 10% of conversions (sales) while the Chrome, FF and other versions of IE make up the other 90%. 10% of sales is still a significant proportion for any business. No matter how the balance of power changes between the browsers that bring in the other 90%, if IE6 users still bring home the bacon for the client, then the bottom line is they should support it. This is exactly the situation I face in my job. We review the conversion rate by browser every three months, and decide which must be supported as a matter of course – not because the company is being backward in it’s thinking – but because of the revenue generated by those users.
Not all designers, in my experience, have sufficient business sense to understand how customers reach their decisions about browser support; it’s a valuable lesson all designers should learn.
I wholeheartedly agree with progressive enhancement and graceful degredation, but I think some designers need to learn to reign in their creativity, particularly when it causes maintenance nightmares for companies that need broader ranging browser support.
Grant wrote 940 days ago · #
I think a lot of people are misinterpreting this suggestion. It’s recommending that you design for the latest browsers first, THEN figure out what will not work in old IE, and FINALLY develop workarounds to support those users. There is no ‘losing 10% of your conversions’ to it. Everyone still gets a functioning site, but the newer browsers are not hassled by deprecated design techniques.
The progressive enhancement approach goes something like: design for ie6, THEN find new things that you could add in for modern browsers, and FINALLY check to make sure it doesn’t break in ie6. It’s a bit rough and dissapointing.
Chances are, most of us are already doing this. Does anyone actually design in ie6? Or do you design in FF, see what breaks in IE, and develop a workaround or separate stylesheet or something. This suggestion is just to put you in the proper mindset: design your site, don’t worry about IE. As bad as IE is, there will be an acceptable alternative for it.
Anthony wrote 798 days ago · #
Progressive enhancement is about more than desktop browsers… wake up! :)
Manuel Neuer wrote 313 days ago · #
This is great very nice info about the browers awesome!
Manuel Neuer wrote 305 days ago · #
This is very cool!
Jannat 2 wrote 303 days ago · #
This is very coool!