In the past, I have spent hours and hours searching through my reference books and on the Internet to make my sites look as good in the various versions of Internet Explorer as in CSS compliant browsers. And I have implemented IE version specific style sheets, IE hacks and rewrites of CSS to make layouts, div’s and other elements look as beautiful in Internet Explorer as in other browsers.
I have implemented the silly Microsoft “expression”-statements for IE-versions not supporting the standard CSS max-width syntax, I have applied Microsoft “filters” of all kinds because IE doesn’t support “box-shadow”. I have inserted extra inner div’s to boxes to make them look the same and have the same size in IE as elsewhere, and I have used unnecessary “clearfixes” (picture by courtesy of RobotJonny.com).
The picture, of course, is much too kind to IE7 (and perhaps even to Opera). It breaks things and messes up too. Even IE8 does that! According to rumors, IE9 will fix all of those things, but I will reserve the right to believe that when I see it. I seem to recall having heard similar things all the way up from IE5! And there are still plenty of bugs left …
No more. I have had enough. I am sick of seeing how bad beautiful typography looks in IE, how well-designed pages get messed up, how nice, discrete shadow effects mess up the fonts within the boxes they apply to in IE. But from now on, for the sites I operate myself, I am not going to bother any more. If Microsoft want to substitute my good looking fonts with thick, ugly looking letters, let borders collapse, and generally render my pages ugly, then let it be so.
From now on, I will consider all those things Microsoft problems that people using Internet Explorer should complain to Microsoft about or start using another browser. I will not help Microsoft by trying to make their inferior browser look good. There is no reason for me to spend lots of hours doing that. For design projects I do for customers I will do it if I have to, but only reluctantly and as little as possible.
That’s my new, radical design principle for 2010 and forwards. It is a very radical decision, as most people for some or other reason still use IE. But it feels very liberating. And it will be a huge time saver. From now on I will have fun and use all the new, wonderful properties of CSS3 and HTML5 as they get implemented in the good browsers. And let Microsoft worry about how IE supports the new standards.
To users with the wrong browsers I will only say this – go and get Firefox, Safari or Chrome if you want to see how sites really look! And now that new, very serious safety issues have been found with Internet Explorer as well, it definitely should be time to change!
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