Posted by level09 on September 12, 2008 at 9:58pm
Lets provide users with a better experience, designing for A crappy browser like IE6 will just hold us back, and limit the features that can be done, 37 signals and Apple MobileMe have already announced dropping IE6 support on all their products, shouldn't we make this step as well ?
Comments
While I hate IE 6 as much as
While I hate IE 6 as much as every other web designer and would love to not have to deal with it, I would say that the final decision should be based on the browser stats from Drupal.org.
Relatively speaking, I also think that the Drupal site should probably support IE 6 at a lower threshold than other sites. For example, how many project managers who are in organizations and companies that still only support IE 6? I'd bet quite a few, and I wouldn't them to come to the Drupal site and be turned away simply because the site looked bad in their browser. What should that threshold be? I'm not really sure, but I would say somewhere around 5%. It doesn't sound like much -- but that is still a ton of people given the Drupal.org traffic.
Of course, all of this depends on when the redesign actually goes live, which from Drupalcon might not be for another year, at which point the debate will probably be settled. We might have all moved away from IE 6 at that point.
Sincerely,
Rene
IE6 around 10%
I have some stats, which I don't trust due to the high amount of opera users that indicate 10% of our users used IE6.
Kieran
I heard chx uses opera,
I heard chx uses opera, might be skewing our stats ;)
A couple other reasons Opera might be popular
The stats are probably bogus
The stats are probably bogus then, awstats says that IE6 is down to 5%.
Edit: I didn't see the age of this discussion. At that time the date may have been correct. But time has moved on, currently IE 6 is at 4.7% on d.o.
Hate to point this out but...
The push of the Drupal.org movement/redesign at the moment will, if successful, garner us MORE hits from users using IE6... not less. As much as we'd all like to think it obsolete and unused, it is not... well not unused at least, and we have to take it into consideration. Plus 10% with the traffic levels of d.o is still a huge number.
Eclipse
I was just about to write something similar
I was just about to write something similar. Thanks for posting this.
Drupal.org user stats are only part of the picture
One of the goals of this project is to bring in new people to the Drupal community, not all of whom will be the kind of tech-savvy users that currently dominate drupal.org's statistics. While we have no idea how many of those people will be IE6 users, most statistics I've seen indicate that IE6 still has an overall 25-30% market share, which puts it on par with all versions of Firefox.
I would personally favor a progressive enhancement approach that targets the most widely used browsers, with older browsers receiving less support. IE6 users should still be able to use drupal.org without any problems, but they may not be exposed to all the bells n' whistles that newer browsers receive.
Over in the Drupal.org theme developers group, Amazon linked to the guide that Yahoo! uses for determining browser support, which may be useful reading for the broader redesign community as well.
PNG support
For me, the main issue with dropping IE6 support (other than conditional comments and an ie.css, which really isn't that much of a pain), is PNG transparency etc. In those cases I'd like to see us paying lip service to IE6 (via iepngfix or whatever is currently preferred), so we can simply drop it at a later date - rather than not being able to use PNGs at all. This has been an issue adding icons to core as well.
So progressive disclosure is good - as long as the site is navigable on IE6 and doens't have completely broken layout I'd be happy
Also worth noting
Drupal is a multi-lingual-culturally-conscious product... making this move would have huge ramifications in other countries potential buy in. I know that in South Korea the numbers of IE users are huge by necessity, and IE6 is still a massive portion of that market.
Eliminating support for IE6 might be pre-mature for a site with as wide a focus as drupal.
Yeah, I wish IE6 would just
Yeah, I wish IE6 would just die already. Till then I think we will be forced to include that monstrosity in supported browsers list.
On the bright site your average IE6 user is way more darwin-award-prone than the rest of population.
Let's compare data.
Browser stats for the last 30 days from DrupalModules.com.
Firefox: 73.50%
Internet Explorer 7: 11.09%
Safari: 5.08%
Opera: 3.96%
Internet Explorer 6: 3.19%
Chrome: 1.60%
Mozilla: 1.10%
Konqueror: 0.20%
These stats are coming from Google Analytics.
Interesting to note: Chrome is up to 1.6%, despite only being out for the last 10 days!
Chrome and Safari actually use the same rendering engine (Webkit). It makes more sense to test/design for Webkit than it does for IE6.
We should also make considerations for the long term trends (The new design will probably be used well into 2010, right?). IE6 market share will continue to drop, and thanks to Google and Apple, Webkit share is very likely to continue increasing. Furthermore, a lot of mobile browsers use Webkit or Opera. Those numbers will also continue to increase. A successful Drupal.org redesign must take these trends into account.
Also, I would hypothesize that if Drupal.org is getting 10% hits for IE6, this is due to people accidentally landing on Drupal.org via non-Drupal related searching. Drupal.org's gigantic pagerank and huge collection of nodes means that Drupal.org pages rank very highly for a lot of random keywords. This has the effect of drawing clicks from people who quite likely have no interest in Drupal.
One way to test this: Check the pages per visit stats for IE6 users, and compare it to Firefox. If these users are already bouncing because they're getting here by mistake, they're really not a legitimate source of traffic, and it makes little sense to spend time and money optimizing the design for them (especially when those resources could be used to make the site better for real users).
You've got to remember that
You've got to remember that DrupalModules is visited mostly by developers/themers - people who generaly are more likely to use a decent browsers.
From the stats I've got access to (stats for last 7 days, all sites over 5000 unique users/day):
Fasion website:
IE6: 48%
IE7: 23%
FF (all versions): 18%
Opera: 7%
Gaming website:
IE6: 21%
IE7: 35%
FF (all versions): 32%
Opera: 9%
Webdesign blog:
IE6: 2%
IE7: 5%
FF (all versions): 64%
Opera: 17%
Chrome: 7%
And that's from Poland - a country where non-ie browsers have an over average market share.
Numbers
My numbers are definitely skewed towards Drupal users. I wouldn't say developers or themers make up the bulk of my traffic, though. I don't have any numbers to back this up, but I'd wager the average visitor to DrupalModules is fairly new to Drupal, most likely setting up their first or second site, and trying to find the best modules for the job.
Compared to a fashion site, it's a completely different demographic.
I also want to make it clear that I'm not saying we should leave IE6 for dead. Drupal.org definitely needs to be usable in IE6.
My main point is that the market is shifting, and in the long run, it's going to be much more important to have the site working flawlessly in Webkit and Opera (and even IE8) than in IE6. The good news is that Webkit and Opera don't require a lot of effort, and generally play nice with standards (IE8 is promising to be a big improvement, too).
I'm also hoping we can get a real, standards compliant, properly validating theme for Drupal.org this time around. It is possible to build a standards compliant theme and still have it look reasonable in IE6. I do it for a living ;)
Don't get me wrong, If it
Don't get me wrong, If it was possible to drop IE6 support I would be first to back the idea, but until the moro...cough... customers/users upgrade their browsers I am stuck with spending 10-30% of time figuring out why the f*** it does not work in IE6.
To sum up:
Konqueror too
Safari built off of Konqueror, so a good portion of what makes Safari happy will make Konqueror happy too.
Unfortunately, I think d.org
Unfortunately, I think d.org has to err on the side of caution for IE6 support. According to Lifecycle Supported Service Packs, we're looking until at least 2010 for security updates for IE6. As long as there are security updates, organizations will continue to use IE6. Once updates are not offered, it's fair to no longer support it as it becomes a security risk to developers who have to test against it.
--Andrew
Does Drupal.org really need
Does Drupal.org really need such cutting-edge features and css styling that IE6 support would just hold things back? I would argue that the site should be pretty simple, and that IA is the big challenge, not the latest css bling. I don't mean to put words into anyone's mouth, but I think this topic is really something of a distraction from the real issues of the d.o redesign.
Laura
pingVision, LLC (we're hiring)
PINGV | Strategy • Design • Drupal Development
I agree with you.
I'm also of the opinion that Drupal.org should keep things simple on the design front. On the other hand, there's a bullet point I've seen a lot in redesign documents: "Drupal.org should be a showcase of what Drupal can do". Some people would interpret that as meaning cutting-edge design and functionality, with all the bells and whistles of web 4.0.
Personally, I think Drupal will benefit most from opening as much data as possible, and letting others develop the cutting edge tools. There's no reason why Drupal.org can't provide links out to great showcases of Drupal technology at work, while maintaining a simple, but effective presence at Drupal.org.
Aside from that, it's definitely too early to finalize any browser compatibility decisions, and it might be fair to call it a distraction at this point. Obviously, there's a lot of work to be done before a single line of CSS gets written.
Thank you for posting this.
Thank you for posting this. I was just about to write something similar.
Pretty topical
At first pass, it might seem like a discussion about browser compatibility is out of scope for a high level design process.
But at the same time, we have a grass roots bottom up recruiting process for themers and members of the community to get involved in the design. So if this discussion means that we recruit someone who ensures all our themes are compatible with IE6, then it's exactly the right kind of discussion we should be having. Let's hope those IE6 enthusiasts join the Drupal.org theme developers group: http://groups.drupal.org/drupalorg-theme-developers
Cheers,
Kieran
Drupal community adventure guide, Acquia Inc.
Drupal events, Drupal.org redesign
I certainly hope that's not a worry
If it is a real legitimate worry, you let me know, and The Worx (or me personally) will make sure that an IE6 compatible version of the css gets written. I think IE6 compatibility shouldn't even be a question at this point.
IE support world wide
Although the market share for IE 6 is continuing to drop in the overall global market, as someone who currently lives in Asia, I can assure you that many, many organizations here are not only using IE 6 (service pack 1!) but Windows 2000.
Drupal is starting to make inroads here in Thailand against the hordes of Joomla/Mambo developers, and continuing to support IE 6 for one more design cycle will probably help convert some of those people.
However, I don't think it would be a bad idea to include an IE 6 only disclaimer like:
"For a better experience on Drupal.org consider using a more modern web browser."
with a link included to a page about browser compatibility and Drupal.
Dave
Think about this scenario: -
Think about this scenario:
- someone is hired to set up a website/intranet for a small/medium company.
- they want Joomla or Typo3
- you suggest Drupal
- they check out drupal.org with their IE6 and they see nothing or a messy page
I think we need IE 6 support.
While I think there is no
I think there is no real choise here - we have to support IE6 until it is used by more than 1-2% of users.
All we really can do right now is add a link to http://browsehappy.com in footer.
.
"Brought to you by WordPress."
Not sure we want a link to that in the footer of drupal.org, useful or not. ;)
Upthread it was mentioned that Opera users skew the IE 6 stats. As an Opera user, I'm curious: why? Do stats lump Opera and IE 6 together? That seems very strange.
Michelle
See my Drupal articles and tutorials or come check out the Coulee Region
User-agent spoofing..
Opera used to identify as IE6, but that was 3 years ago.
.
Ah, thanks. That was before I started using Opera.
Michelle
See my Drupal articles and tutorials or come check out the Coulee Region
The whole "browse happy"
The whole "browse happy" thing has been a cause of great debate within the Wordpress development community also. I've set up some simple intra-governmental sites using WP (as a very simple CMS) before and they always want that link disabled. The reason is that their computers use IE6 and there isn't anything they can do about it, so why even provoke users to want to try and install something. This is also common in numerous corporations. They are still on IE6 and probably won't upgrade to IE7 until they absolutely have to.
IMHO Drupal.org browser specifications should coincide with actual Drupal specifications, or at least fallback to them. According to w3schools, IE6 still accounts for about 25% of the browser share. IE7 is also about 25%, which says that out of all IE users, they are pretty much evenly split between 6 and 7. Drupal attracts a the full spectrum genre of websites. Some will want to use the full package of bells and whistles offered by the latest browsers, while others will only rely upon the basic Javascript/CSS that comes with Drupal.
Drupal.org should be a showcase of what can be done with Drupal, not what can be done with Drupal + the latest browser. While it might not be the largest share of hits, the people coming here for the first time to find a CMS to handle their needs it still one of the most important shares and vital to Drupal's continue growth as a dominant factor in the world of CMS. People coming to Drupal.org, only to find out it doesn't work right in IE6 would most likely be out to blame Drupal instead of the Drupal.org site design. There could also be the perception that if someone builds a site in Drupal then people in IE6 won't be able to view their site. Of course a good developer will be able to dismiss that idea, but we must ask ourselves how many people will come to Drupal.org to find it doesn't work right in IE6 and then take the extra step to consult with someone about it, or will they be more out to move on to the next CMS on their list? My guess is the later option will prevail in that case.
HollyIT - Grab the Netbeans Drupal Development Tool at GitHub.
My other concern with Browse Happy
The site never draws a distinction between different versions of IE, instead implying that all versions of IE are unsafe. While IE7 is far from a perfect browser, it's not a bad one either, and I don't think it deserves to be lumped into the same category as IE6.
Make it
Make it drupal.org/browsehappy then or, if you want to be more honest, drupal.org/dont-be-bloody-stupid ;-)
Quote from 37 signals site
Quote from 37 signals site :
"The Internet Explorer 6 browser was released back in 2001, and Internet Explorer 7, the replacement, was released nearly two years ago in 2006. Modern web browsers such as IE 7, Firefox, and Safari provide significantly better online experiences. Since IE 6 usage has finally dipped below a small minority threshold of customers, it's time to finally move beyond IE 6 "
"IE 6 is a last-generation browser. This means that IE 6 can't provide the same web experience that modern browsers can. Continued support of IE 6 means that we can't optimize our interfaces or provide an enhanced customer experience in our apps. Supporting IE 6 means slower progress, less progress, and, in some places, no progress. We want to make sure the experience is the best it can be for the vast majority of customers, and continuing to support IE 6 holds us back."
its not just about png transparency, or css rendering problems, you can find a huge list of IE6 bugs that also include incompatibility with modern Ajax JS Libraries, SWfObject etc ..
Drupal is about revolutionary Ideas, so 10% users might not get a great experience, but they will still be able to browse, and access information, they can get a notification message to upgrade to a newer version or download a better browser, so if something is broken they know it is not drupal, it is their outdated browser.
on the other hand, why concentrating on 10% and forgetting about the Majority ? we can provide an amazing experience for the 90% of users.
we have reached a point where UI really matters, reminds me when I first started with joomla, I was impressed by their iconic interface, sliding menus, properly formatted tables etc
Something I've learned from technology makers, they are not be afraid of making such decisions, think of adobe when they releases a flash-based platform (flex), or when Google releases a new browser in the middle of a Browser war.
Simple Drupal Themes
http://level09.net
Property Management with Drupal
http://smsar.me
On the other hand, you don't
On the other hand, you don't see Google designing its core business to be incompatible with IE6. No, Google search, AdWords, AdSense all work with IE6.
Drupa.org is in part a marketing site, and I don't believe marketing needs are helped by giving a big middle finger to people stuck in IE6 (most of whom are stuck in decisions made by their IT departments, not by themselves). Also, a big part of the world we're looking to invite to Drupal is that corporate world, where IE6 is still quite common, if not dominant.
By making *.d.o incompatible with IE6, we would be telling the world that Drupal doesn't work with IE6, which is not true.
Progressive enhancement is certainly an option, but just forgetting about IE6 ignores the reality of the world in which Drupal is growing and thriving, imho.
Laura
pingVision, LLC (we're hiring)
PINGV | Strategy • Design • Drupal Development
By making *.d.o incompatible
Exactly, I think that's a key point. In most cases webdesigner and site builder have to take care that their product is fully accessible with all widely used browsers. I wouldn't choose a cms to build my site with if it's main webpage only supports some of them. And IE6 will remain a widely used browser in the coming months, maybe even years. See for example http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp. I know, it's a pity...
But by the way, I don't think that supporting IE6 would be such a pain in the ass. Try IE5... ;)
put a big pink elephant on the homepage
The elephant would only be visible to IE6 users via javascript. That will get people's attention. The elephant should be choosing a web browser. position: absolute; with a line at the bottom of the page that says "Why am I seeing this?" and few more words about why they need to upgrade their browsers. We'll call it "The Elephant of Shame".
As a designer I often forget that IE6 isn't just bad for it's rendering of CSS and html - it is just plain bad.
HA! Folks at Microsoft has
HA! Folks at Microsoft has seen this one coming and got prepared well: position: absolute does not work in IE6 :P
I went checking the awstats
I went checking the awstats for my site. It was showing that some users are still using IE3. Not to mention alpha 0.x versions of Firefox. This month IE6 makes up about 23.9% of the site traffic. And IE overall gets 71.7% of the overall traffic.
While I can understand being
While I can understand being reluctant about dropping IE6 support, a decision like that could make Drupal.org one of the pioneers that helped bring about the well deserved retirement of this crappy piece of software.
All web workers – even those using Joomla ;) - would love Drupal.org for being one of the driving forces of such a great achievement.
--
My Drupal Articles
If that's the goal...
... then I'm far more comfortable making Drupal the product drop support for IE6 than having drupal.org drop support for IE6. The point is that drupal.org is the place where people who know nothing about Drupal come for information, and it needs to be as welcoming as possible to as many people as possible who may not yet have drunk the Kool-Aid. Once they've been sold on Drupal, I think it's far easier to make the case that Drupal is cutting-edge software, and if they want to use it, they should upgrade to a newer browser.
Core issue here:
Core issue here: http://drupal.org/node/308865 you never know :)
And to be clear:
When I say "Drupal the product", I'm primarily talking about tools that are primarily used as part of the administrative interface. I would not want people to be unable to build IE6-compatible sites. I do think that Drupal needs to offer things like Conditional Stylesheets support so that folks can build sites that can be viewed in any browser, no matter how crappy that browser might be.
That'd be my exact view too.
That'd be my exact view too. There's no reason that dropping support in core should prevent IE6 compatible sites being built. Also I don't think we should go out of our way to drop support, but consider lessening the priority given to IE6 - i.e. like tableheaders in D6, just switch some things off if they don't work as opposed to adding levels of complexity to patch up IE6 where it's broken.
Yes, themers can of course
Yes, themers can of course do whatever they want with their themes, but I strongly believe that core should drop support for IE6.
It would be awesome if it was somehow possible to actually sum up all the extra work developers around the world have done for their clients just to make it compatible with IE6. From the clients point of view it would most certainly look like a robbery :P
Let's see how much IE6 costs us
I've made a poll - I would like to know how big the problem really is.
http://groups.drupal.org/node/14933
Couldn't agree more. +1 Best
Couldn't agree more.
+1
Best regards,
Thomas Kulvik
Ny Media AS
www.nymedia.no
+47 4000 7955
+1 to drop IE6 support on
+1 to drop IE6 support on d.o, g.d.o and while we're at it; in drupal core and contrib. It's a chicken-egg situation, just like the php4 to php5 issue that brough on the goPHP5 movement. Let's lead the way into the future.
Bevan/
Bevan/
Bigger pond
Drupal is a big-ish fish in the PHP pond.
We can influence the movement to PHP 5.
Building a website takes a certain commitment of time.
Choosing Php5 over Php4 is a relatively small decision to make,
and most [though not all] site builders would be prepared to make that move.
We won't even know how that will pan out until D7 is released.
Now lets looks at IE6.
The perspective to look at is that of a website visitor.
The fact that they are still on IE6 means
a) They are forced to [by network administrators in a large corporate network, for example]
or
b) They couldn't be arsed to change
Their decision is
'This website doesn't work in my browser. Should I move to a different website?'
Any one website is a sardine in the ocean.
They won't hesitate to move on.
I hate IE6. Before that I hated IE5.5 and before that IE5.
I'd love to drop it and get onto hating IE7.
But some of my sites are reporting usage still at 30% - its just too soon.
For Drupal the software, and maybe G.D.O, Maybe we could drop IE6 support completely [not even graceful degradation].
Its a relatively technical audience, who understand the concept of 'minimum requirements'.
But for the websites that Drupal produces - not a chance.
Alan
I agree with this
Drupal.org not supporting IE6 is not going to convince people to upgrade their browser; it's just going to irritate and frustrate people who are still using it.
Now that IE6 is officially
Now that IE6 is officially Dead .. do we have an agreement here :) ?
Simple Drupal Themes
http://level09.net
Property Management with Drupal
http://smsar.me
It's not officially dead (though I wish it were)
Just because Google says it's slowly phasing out IE6 support doesn't kill it. So long as Microsoft supports it, it's technically alive.
As of last month, 10% of users are still on IE6 according to W3Counter:
http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php
Todd Ross Nienkerk
Digital Strategist and Partner
Four Kitchens: Big ideas for the web
IRC: toddross