Progressive Enhancement
Published Thursday 16th of December 2010
I recently recieved a rather amusing e-mail from one of my visitors. Apparently this person, who calls himself "Jamie", doesn't know what progressive enhancement is all about.
Here's what he wrote:
You should take some classes.
A good web developer would never have an ugly page which displays "Your browser doesn't support the modern CSS used on this web page, therefore it is served with the universal IE6 stylesheet. For a richer browsing experience, please consider upgrading to a better, modern browser."
I can't believe people like you still exist post "web 2.0"! So much for user experience. I happen to use and love firefox but was searching for/testing in IE.
You're in ability/laziness to design for all browsers shows that you obviously don't take your site very seriously and thus, I can't take you seriously.
You and your site look disgraceful.
So this post is for Jamie and everyone else who still believes that all pages need to look the same in all browsers.
First of all, this is my personal blog and my main audience is other web developers and nerds in general so I don't feel any obligation to write retarded, old-school code to please users of Microsoft's disgrace of a browser called IE.
Secondly, the content is still accessible to all browsers. You just won't get a proper design or any JavaScript if you use an out-dated browser or one with a poor implementation of standards.
Progressive Enhancement is about building a solid, accessible-to-all, foundation and then enhancing that for the devices and browsers that are capable of understanding those enhancements.
So, Andy Clarke's "Universal IE6 CSS" is absolutely brilliant and allows me to focus on proper browsers that understand modern code and not have to worry about how fucked up it'll look in the worst browser on the planet.
[...] with a little creative thinking, some simple CSS and most importantly the understanding that not all browsers, especially older ones, need not see the same design [...]
That is why I'm now advocating to my clients (and to you), that where feasible, not to waste hours in time and a client's money on lengthy workarounds in an unnecessary attempt at cross-browser perfection. Instead, you and I should provide simple but effectively designed HTML elements. This means just great typography for headings, paragraphs, quotations, lists, tables and forms and no styling of layout.
Universal Internet Explorer 6 CSS
Besides, I fucking loathe IE and I don't intend spending time fixing its fucked up behavior just because some visitors are so ridiculously uneducated when it comes to browser awareness.
Lastly, I have to write old, crappy CSS all day long at work because most people still want cross-browser perfection so when I work on my own site I gladly ignore IE altogether.
Cheers
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