For one of our recent website developments, we decided to assess whether or not Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 compatibility was still necessary for new sites being developed today.

Our motives were simple – We wanted to be able remove the need for all those horrible work-rounds that IE6 demands of today’s web developers. I have in mind here things like the hover event used by menus based on unordered lists and the lack of support for properties such as first-child that give added flexibility to CSS.

Sadly, our findings have revealed evidence that there is still a large user-base for this venerable browser. According to the W3C, there were still 14.5% of users with IE6. Another site, that collates browser usage statistics (www.upsdell.com) cited figures that generally indicated a range of 13% to 27% (excluding a high of 63% for the EWS statistics, although EWS uses a different way of acquiring and categorising figures). Lastly, we have a value of 33% cited by www.thecounter.com.

The conclusion seems obvious: IE6 remains a significant browser to be considered in current web developments. We feel that this is in large due to the continuing use of older operating systems such as Windows 98 (and to a lesser extent NT4), that cannot be upgraded to more recent versions of Internet Explorer. Sadly, older operating systems tend to run on older hardware, which means that the option of running more modern gecko-based browsers, with their additional bloat is not always an option.

It seems then, that for the time being at least, IE6 compatibility can only be ignored in systems where the type and version of browser can be more strictly controlled (e.g. intranet systems).

Wikkipedia defines it as:
“What is perceived as a second generation of web development and web design. It is characterised as facilitating communication, information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. It has led to the development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services, and web applications. Examples include social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs and folksonomies.”

Does this actually mean anything at all, or is your website 1.0 and you *need* to get it updated?!

Websites can become out of date very quickly, and it is important that it is constantly updated. Otherwise – why should people come back?

However – is it vital that you are “2.0″ complient?

I personally don’t think so – but there are many advantages.
Blogging, Linked In, Twitter and Facebook all provide links into your site, and drive “traffic” to you. Your site will get noticed and used a lot more. A website must also look good – if it doesn’t – then why should people buy from you – it’s about image and professionalism – giving people a reason to use you rather than another site. (Although price often has a bearing!)

I guess the real question is what is 3.0 going to give us?!

Firefly are happy to announce the appointment of Chris Wade as Technical Director.
Chris has been working in IT for over 20 years, and his experience in many sectors, and knowledge of both Web and Progress will enhance the offering and support that Firefly are able to provide to its customers.

Firefly have aided in the development of a new website,
“The Friends of Royal Albert Park”.
This website was created as part of an initiative by Science City York.

ProWeb Features Update – New Drag and Drop Screen Features.