TVframe does not work well with IE6... and we're OK with that

One of the challenges in updating Denver Open Media's site was balancing the amount of new, cutting-edge technologies like Flash and JQuery we use with the level of technology DOM's users already have installed or are capable of supporting with older computers. It is difficult to reach out to the next generation of PEG members while still supporting old technologies with the resources we have available.

Right now, the TVframe theme does not work very well with IE6. We've received a few complaints about this. When looking at DOM's analytics, we found only 1/3 of user visiting the site are still using IE...

Of the IE users, only 1/3 of those are still using IE6...

So less than 10% of DOM's users are using IE6. IE6 was release in August of 2001. Everyone familiar with web design and development knows that we can end up spending as much time getting functionality and design to work correctly with that 8 year old browser as we do with all other browsers combined.

Is it really worth investing the amount of time necessary to make TVframe work with IE6?

At DOM, we've decided it isn't. We are only supporting viewing content with IE6 in the new site. Users who want to reserve equipment, submit a show, or participate in a project will need to update to IE7 or IE8 or install Firefox. Since these are all free solutions, we don't feel this puts any true hardship on users. We are aware that user may not be able to upgrade the computer they use at school, work, or a library, but we feel that asking those organizations to upgrade to a browser released in the last 8 years is a reasonable request. If any of the Open Media System partners have a larger percentage of IE6 user, we'll be looking to that station to take ownership of this issue and submit patches to the TVframe theme. We're not against IE6. We just feel we can better serve DOM's members and our Open Media System using stations by investing our time in other parts of the system.