As of today, January 12, 2016, Microsoft will no longer support older versions (8, 9 and 10) of Internet Explorer. Many people are celebrating the “death” of these browsers and seem to be very relieved that they no longer have to support these outdated browsers. It seems for many it is all or nothing, black or white, no support or support and I am not very happy with this thinking.
Core experience #
Don’t get me wrong, I am also pleased to see that outdated browsers will no longer be supported and many users will probably switch to modern browsers, but this doesn’t mean we should stop delivering our core experience for users still using older browsers.
For me this means, I will update my cut the mustard tests and handle IE9 and IE10 as HTML4 browsers in the future like I already do with IE8. HTML4 browser means these browsers will get the core experience, but I won’t invest extra time to deliver an enhanced version for them.
This also means old browsers shouldn’t stop you from using new web features or adding enhancements for modern browsers, it means that we shouldn’t exclude users with outdated browsers as they often don’t have the possibility to update and still want to use your website.
Be future-friendly and stop the all-or-nothing thinking.