[Web4lib] RE: Getting Rid of IE 6

[Cloutman, David]

We also have users using Web TV, and there's no way I'm bothering with
that. Another poster commented on making the Web accessible, which is
true. But we have a legal mandate to support screen readers, and blind
people can't upgrade their eyes. In fact, doing tableless layouts to
support screen readers is largely the reason why I'm having the IE 6
issue. I decided to gamble on not creating a site that was backwards
compatible because it was going to require many hours of CSS hacks and
debugging, and it just didn't seem like it was worth it at the time. If
I'd done the thing in tables, it would have worked flawlessly.

I think you're right, Tim, when you say governments shouldn't follow the
same cost benefit analysis as businesses in making these decisions,
though I'm not exactly sure how you meant it. If this were a web site
for a business, I'd fix the problem and make it backwards compatible
because of the potential loss of revenue. But killing off IE 6 in favor
of versions that are less vulnerable to bot infections seems like a
public good. It's good for the user, but it's also good for the other
Internet users who have to deal with the results of there being so many
infected computers out there. 

As far as old OS versions, IE 7 will do Windows 2000, IE 8 will do XP.
If your computer is older that, you've got a computer that is too old to
reasonably support.

- David

---
David Cloutman <dcloutman at co.marin.ca.us>
Electronic Services Librarian
Marin County Free Library 

-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Spalding [mailto:tim at librarything.com] 
Sent: Friday, April 10, 2009 1:13 PM
To: Cary Gordon
Cc: Thomas Edelblute; Cloutman, David; web4lib at webjunction.org
Subject: Re: [Web4lib] RE: Getting Rid of IE 6


We've been talking about this on LibraryThing. The thread might be of
interest: http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=61916

Some thoughts:

1. I'm surprised you're at 10%. LibraryThing, which has a somewhat
more tech-savvy audience than most websites has only just reached 13%.
2. The strongest push-back comes from people who *can't*
switch-particularly people in companies or governments with
locked-down machines. If I were you, I'd call up all the Marin County
IT offices. If the city councilors can't hit the library site, that
might not be good.
3. We're going to ditch IE6 when it hits about 5%. But we're a
business-losing at worst 1/20 of our customers is worth it if we can
also cut development time by 20%.
4. I'm not convinced a government institution-a public library-should
use the same profit/loss logic as a company. If you did, you'd also
not support screen readers! It's hard to define the limits but
shouldn't a public institution treat minority interests with more care
than that? The people with super-old machines that can't upgrade are,
in a sense, the ones the library needs to help the most.

When, in a previous life, I developed educational software for public
schools, we had to support all machines then in use in the school for
seven years--so we were supporting Apple IIgs systems around 2001.
This is a technical nightmare, but I'm not sure it isn't what
governments should do.

Best,
Tim

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