Re: Target browsers for web development

John ODonovan said:
> Educating users in this context is very sticky. I think educating users
> explicitly about standards is not the right way as they don't care about
> standards. But informing them is essential.

John hit the nail on the head. The problem with the WSP disclaimer used by
many sites is the way it's phrased. The disclaimer I'll be putting on my
new site will go something like this: "While the site will look much
better in a current browser, the site's content should be accessible by
all browsers." Same information, different tone.

> What was essential though was that Black & White TVs did not break when
> colour pictures were transmitted due to a very clever use of encoding.

The question boils down to what one considers "breaking." I think it's
useful to think of a high-res version (5.x+ IE, NS as well as Opera,
Safari, etc.) vs. a low-res version (older/less capable browsers).

The beauty of CSS is that you can design pages that will gracefully
degrade. Essentially, modern browsers get the full layout. The low-res
version strips the layout (but ideally lays out the content in a logical
order), and can provide some basic styling. It actually doesn't require
much extra work, since the low-res version is almost identical to the
printer-friendly version of your site. And since it's all being done by
using different CSS stylesheets, you're not trying to manage multiple
versions of your site.

In general, NS 4.x usage is around 2-5%, so in most cases, I'd recommend
this strategy, due to the amount of extra effort required to support it.
(There are still browser differences between modern browsers, but it's an
order of magnitude easier.) Whether that's acceptable depends on the
specific context.

But I wouldn't assume that it's automatically unacceptable. I'm working
with a company where a key client is using NS 4.x and has no plans to
upgrade because it would require replacing hardware enterprise-wide.
However, they appear receptive to receiving a low-res version of our site
precisely because their hardware is so ancient.

George

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