I retired from personal blogging in July 2008.
But you can find me over at http://blog.xero.com.
Do you think we should phase out IE6 support?
Our reasoning for why we should is here.
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Going global from New Zealand |
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Going global from New Zealand |
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I retired from personal blogging in July 2008.
But you can find me over at http://blog.xero.com.
Do you think we should phase out IE6 support?
Our reasoning for why we should is here.
Contact:
Rod Drury
Wellington
New Zealand
rod @ drury.net.nz
blog
Absolutely!
It increases the development and compliance cost of sites, which is a large burden on small web based businesses. Now if only MS would become standards compliant…
Actually I think it is a bit premature. Most large corporates (almost all) that we deal with are still running IE6. I know this is not Xero’s target market but still seems you will be limiting where people will be able to access you from.
Of course you have to balance this against the killer feature you can’t add with an IE6 dependency.
bin it
@ Tony - Agree with targetting coporates, you need to support it.
However if you target is the consumer or SMB, then I don’t think support is required.
Interesting stats graph but those are only Xero’s stats not the Internets stats. I would love to have less browsers to support however there are lots of users out there so it depends on who you are targeting for Xero because its not your own existing stats you should be worried about but the people who are not your customers yet. And if you check you will see there are a lot more IE6 users (unfortunately) than Safari users.
And as Xero is marketed as easy, don’t make potential customers have to install new software to use your web software. Otherwise you limit the market to Geeks and Technical people.
Plus I don’t think 37 Signals has huge market share in NZ
Being you are not TradeMe, you are basicly an application, so yes - I’d say drop it. but make sure if someone comes in with IE6, there is a good explanation on what to do, and WHY.
I wouldn’t expect an application to support anything these days except XP or Vista, and both have or can have IE7, so asking people to upgrade isn’t a big thing, IMO. Or even run Firefox.
Maybe you should / could make a site specific browser (Prism? Fluid for the mac?) for Xero, for those who dont want to upgrade?? It’s basicly just Firefox (or Safari in the case of Fluid), but might be worth a look?
The project I’m currently working on at ANZ National requires me to create web content compatible with IE6.
This browser is the absolute bane of web developers everywhere: we hate it with the passion of a thousand burning suns, even forgetting about the security issue. The overhead in terms of providing a maintainable solution for businesses is significantly higher in IE6 than it would be if we worked with more modern browsers (in terms of catering to IE6’s idiosyncrasies).
That being said, the bank still has the entire nation’s branch staff running IE6 and that, as much as I might dislike it, is a big part of why we need to keep supporting it. The other reason is that (depending on whose stats you believe) IE6 still commands a significant enough market share that it would be - at least on some level - a disservice to your customers by ignoring them (see http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp). It’s a difficult choice between telling people what’s good for them or having to submit to the technologically ignorant: do you force them to upgrade or not?
There’s an interesting post on CNet about browsers and whether, like food, they need a “best before” date (http://www.cnet.com.au/software/internet/0,239029524,339290240,00.htm). Worth a read. I think the bottom line is that while almost everyone would agree that IE6 is a demon browser that should be expelled to the dark depths from whence it came, the reality is that we’re stuck with it for a while yet and it will be some time before we can finally say it’s done its dash.
Looking at those stats I’d certainly keep it for now.
37 Signals is not a good benchmark in my opinion - it is really a niche product for rather technically savvy people. They appear to have some solid ideals, which might get in the way of sensible commercial decisions.
In my experience clients running IE6 (which appears to be around 14% for Xero) have little choice in the matter - locked down machines etc. Hence, droppping support is likely to cut into your customer base to ~5% and will also have that effect on potential new clients.
It’s also likely that as Xero becomes more mainstream and gains more market that the IE6 support would continue to be an important issue in the near future.
Beyond ease of development, it is still a more popular browser than Safari for your clients.
We’ve had good success with Dean Edward’s work here
http://dean.edwards.name/IE7/ which brings IE6 up to speed with minimal effort.
Lose IE6.
Host a copy of the IE7 install file on Xero.com. Run a script when people sign up to check browser version?
Bundle the install instructions inside Welcome to Xero pack, IE7 becomes part of the ‘install’ of Xero, much like filling out the DD form and bank feeds etc?
Everyone converted will thank you for it. Make it available on disk for dialup (ugh)
Ew I meant FF3 install file*
@kieran
so let me see - the Xero marketers head out and sell the benefits of on-demand software to technophobes. Having finally convinced them that on-demand is the way of the future, they sign up.
Upon signing up they get asked to install something big and scary
See any problems here?
Xero’s target market are mom and dad business people who, sad as it sounds, still use clunky old pc’s, microsoft works and, yes, ie6
Don’t cut off you nose in spite of your face guys (or was the correct metaphor the one about babies and bathwater? - oh well, you get the drift)
Ben’s right. Unless the cost of support starts to significantly override the value of IE6 signups, you’re better off having them on board than not. All new customers are gold at this stage.
* What are the total costs versus benefits of dropping IE6 support?
* Is there a mitigation route e.g. standalone install (prism seems great, or windows app, java or whatever), or downgrade IE6 users to a non-ajax HTML site (if you plan one)?
Say you lose at most 10% of customers, and you can develop front-end features 5% faster. Will those extra features give you more than a 10% market increase?
When you eventually drop support for IE6, will the unrecoverable costs involved be worth the opportunity cost of features that will continue to be of value to the business?
Personally I want to see lots more highly visible sites drop support for IE6 - as that encourages users to upgrade - the earlier the avalanche effect is started the better for me. Also note the 37signals article says “As of August 15th, 2008, future features and any improvements made to existing features may not work with IE 6.” i.e. they may be continuing support.
The main benefits of dropping IE6 are faster development, happier developers, and less support/testing overhead. That leads to more features. IE6 can do or simulate just about anything IE7 can, however often the costs to make a web app work in IE6 are very significant.
You seem to be saying the main cost of dropping support seems to be that you will lose some customers or fail to gain some customers (some percentage of IE6 users that are unwilling/unable to upgrade to use Xero). Other costs could be negative market reaction (users hate limitations), and support costs from users trying to use IE6. I hope you are listening carefully to your market, and not being side-tracked by pure development goals :)
Background - I develop a fully JavaScript based Ajax app that will continue to support IE6.
The web developer in me say bin all support for IE and push for Firefox of Safari. Unfortunately we have to live in the real world and for now I think Ben Kepes hit the nail on the head.
Whenever I am making a decision in this vain I always think I my mum. How would she cope with these curcumstances. Not supporting the browser she uses? She wouldn’t use the site. Sorry mum.