The problem with designing for IE

Two words: bureaucracy. It may just be that they havn't yet got around to making a universal page, nevertheless i am not suprised. Its one thing to encourage peole to become internet users, (I use mozzila - note the sarcasm) and its another to discriminate against those who don't. We will just see what happens..
 
it would take like 5 minutes to whip out an alternative registration form using basic html. i understand the need for QA but this is just ridiculous.

even parts dell's website require msie, and http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/ gives you this glaring disclaimer that the site has only been tested with msie (how long does it take to make sure your form works on a different browser?)

i know alot of gov sites have strict requirements, like how the form must be accessible use the JAWS screen reader (for blind people) which takes time to test, but in the meantime there's nothing wrong with at least having a usable temporary alternative, better than nothing
 
I'm a coldfusion developer contracted to a government agency. The government is required to pass 508 accessibility rules, and there is a quite extensive set of documents about how to follow this. My team has to provide reports showing that our work is compliant. The problem seems to be that many of the people who actually own the sites aren't familiar with the web in general, and rely on the web developers to do it the right way. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the person in charge of this program had no idea that there would be an issue, and just assumed that everyone could use IE 6. Also note that 508 compatible does not nessecarly mean compatible with all web-browsers... One of the things I hear from time to time is that our web log stats show about 90% usage by IE, depending on the month. Unless something like this comes along, they don't think it's worthwhile to make sure the rest work, without realizing that it doesn't take a lot of effort to do. Sadly, this includes as many 'developers' as it does managers.

Not all government websites are like that. I take pride in the work I do, and the fact that I do my development with firefox, and even test in lynx and on my first generation blackberry. My co-workers think it's overkill. I think it's important to never have the major news networks doing a story about one of my websites. (Not that this would actually happen with the sites that I work on) I can't imagine how embarrassed I'd be if I had worked on that project. If they were a contractor, they might even have lost future work for their company.

I did notice that the FEMA page no longer has an IE notice....
 
That article doesn't give you all the info...

That page was never intended to be public, it was created for use by the FEMA call center, which uses a single browser (IE). They made it public due to the prior storms, and were about to replace it with a "real" public version which would work with all browsers.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050906-5278.html



To be honest, when I create a personal web tool for my own use (not used or accessable by others), checking browsers I don't use isn't on the priority list.
 
[MS] said:
To be honest, when I create a personal web tool for my own use (not used or accessable by others), checking browsers I don't use isn't on the priority list.
Click to expand...
I generally avoid programming habits that result in fundamental incompatibilities, whether on personal projects or in my professional work. It's not uncommon for me to end up with minor rendering glitches that don't impact functionality, but it's quite rare for a site to just be unusable in any recent browser.
 
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