As entertaining a thought as it would be to do something like this, it’s realistically only fun for the tech-oriented people behind the scenes. Many areas of business are still mired in IE6-based web/intranet tools and we still have to realistically support these customers. Even when we hate it.

The only way we can get rid of IE6 surely is through progressive enhancement. Give IE6 users access to the kind of internet they know and expect, but anything else that is cool new technology won’t be available to them unless they upgrade.

I have been trying to let my clients know that the reason they can’t see the transparency on boxes, or still have jaggedy edges on rounded GIF corners is because they are using an old browser that doesnt support transparant PNGs

How can anyone justify such a thing? OK, it’s a little annoying that we have to occasionally develop for IE6 but surely it’s bad enough that it’s usres have to make do with slightly broken layouts etc and lack of styling, but to deny the actual content is going too far.

Content that CAN be viewed on IE6 should never be unavailable to such a browser.

Then again, I will stop fixing most of the issues of IE6 whenever possible. Why? If the users want a better user experience, then upgrade your browser.

Same goes for work places. It’s basic business logic: If you’re not up to date with the new trends, ideas and technologies, how do you expect to keep up to your competitors? It might be frustrating by the users of such work places to stick to IE6, but sooner or later the company will have to upgrade or face the consequences of using an 8 year old, flawed piece of software.

The only reason IE6 has lasted this long is because we’ve let it do so. LEt IE6users access their information, but with the flaws that the browser gives: broken layouts (as long as the information is still visible, I won’t care anymore), slow rendering times, lack of PNG transparencies and all those nice features everyone else has.

Then again, I really dislike Paul Battley’s attitude.

I agree, it’s very unprofessional.

As an aside, the survey was on the Digg blog:
http://blog.digg.com/?p=878

“This goes directly to why most folks use IE6: they don’t have a choice. Three out of four IE6 users on Digg said they can’t upgrade due to some technical or workplace reason.”

I think we need to take this into account. We make/design websites for an, at times, unknown audience, we cannot discriminate against some people just because it’s not their fault they are using a browser which is still supported by it’s manufacturers in an environment which does not allow them to upgrade.

One day, I used my phone to visit someone’s site, to test how it would work. They had tables and inline styling, and images instead of text.
On the phone, the page rendered and styled pretty much exactly like it would on a computer; there was a horizontal scrollbar, because the screen was too thin, but I could find my way around and navigate.
Visiting someplace that uses a CSS stylesheet, meanwhile, brings me to a white page with rows of normal text.

It’s kind of maddening that the wrong way of doing it actually gives the better results. Will IE6 end up like this, too? Will it just be a white page, because using standards will slowly mean that IE6 can’t see what we’re doing?
It’s already starting to happen. None of my sites have rounded corners in IE, anymore. Soon, other graphics, like gradients, will disappear.

@George

I suppose it all depends on how long it takes you to write “hacks”, what the difference in experience is, and whether or not there’s a direct correlation between browser version and sales performance.

Most people I know who code for IE6 have developed code snippets that work 99% of the time across all browsers including IE6.  There’s no development time lost when using tried and true methods.  There’s also not much time spent in the rare occasion that you see the double-margin float bug or others when you know immediately how to fix them.

As for user experience, every company and client will be different.  Most people who still code for IE6 work within the framework of what IE6 allows them to do, so user experience usually doesn’t differ between IE6 and, say IE8.  Do we sacrifice certain features newer browsers allow us to do easier? Yes, but you could argue using CSS3 or browser-specific selectors right now might give a wider range of both positive and negative experience for customers using a site.  Say what you will about working with IE6, but if you care enough about making IE6 work you probably are going to have little to no difference in experience between it and the latest version of Safari.

Finally, while easy to type and comprehend, the “better experience” argument is a hard sell for any established company.  For a new company I think you could get away with it.  People tend not to mind upgrading to experience something new.  People will stop buying from you if you ask them to upgrade to do the very same thing they were able to a day earlier without upgrading, especially if they lack the technical knowledge on how to upgrade or are required to go through a third party like IT.

Trust me, I get it.  Coding for IE6 sucks.  It wastes our time, it holds back the future of the web, and it’s full of buggy behavior.  But while there are existing companies getting a percent of their overall web profits coming in through customers using IE6, you will continue to see (poor saps) like me making a living by getting better at working with IE6 until it gives up the ghost.  To all of you who can do a part in making that happen sooner, I salute you.