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I would like to make my site fully W3C HTML/CSS compliant. No nested tables, no font tags, no bold tags, etc. The result is smaller and better organized files.
Most of my sites visitors are using IE 5 or 6. But, browsers are not compliant and my site still has a few vistors using Netscape 2,3,4 and IE 3, 4. CSS is supposed to degrade gracefully with older browsers, but because of browser bugs and limited support that is not reality.
Is it possible to set up the server so that those with older browsers are automatically sent an alternative page?
So, should I ignore those few vistors with older browsers and go compliant? If not, when?
Good question with a complex answer. It all depends upon your product and target audience(s). It would be better to always be compliant, but, in reality this can be a daunting and often fruitless task.
It would be better to offer those with older browsers a warning window which says, "You are presently using an older browser. To fully obtain the best from this website please upgrade.", (or word to that effect) and offer them a page where they can get the various browser upgrades.
I look after Federal Government websites and we only programme for those operating browsers 4+. Lately though we have had to include WML due the amount of activity via phones and mini browsers/pdas.
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It's good to be compliant, but it's not 100% necessary.
As long as it works.
With help from members here I developped a CSS layout (no tables) with two stylesheets: a "real" one for modern browsers and a "lame" one for NN4. Like this:
<link rel="StyleSheet" href="main.css" type="text/css">
<link rel="StyleSheet" href="nn4_layout.css" type="text/css">
<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
@import url(real_layout.css);
</STYLE>
main.css is innocuous stuff that even NN4 can understand :) nn4_layout.css is code that NN4 can understand, it gets read by both NN4 and real browsers. But real browsers then overwrite it with real_layout.css which NN4 cannot understand (but does not read thanks to the @import).
Many thanks to those who patiently helped me through that transition a year or so ago! I feel that it was definitely worth the effort.
Good question with a complex answer. It all depends upon your product and target audience(s).
True story: I went to book a flight yesterday at a well known airline here in the "continental" United States. Was using Opera and couldn't even read their site. I opened IE and was able to navigate the site very slowly (IE tends to handle sessions much slower than Opera IMHO). I was slowly able to choose my flight, seating, and enter payment information. On the last page before the final purchase there was a field in the form with a "what's this?" beside it. I right clicked to open in a new window and it came up blank (JavaScript Error), so I then clicked on the link which I thought would be a popup - no dice, it opened a new page. The page gave an explanation of the form field but did not have any "back" navigation. I chose the back button from IE and I got a "warning: session expired". All of the work I had done and information entered was lost. I went back and searched flights, chose seats etc. Final step was finalizing the purchase. When I did I received an error stating my address for my credit card did not match (it did)and was presented with a screen to call customer service. I did, I explained everything I had been through with the customer service rep. He replied their site doesn't get that many reservations so they don't really worry about all the errors since most people seemed to use the site for pricing and then call in. Ha! I couldn't believe it! What kind of logic is that?
Had someone check the site later on a Mac and everything was skewed about. Why spend all the money on a site if you are leaving so many users out in the cold....
I would always try to validate every site and also check it with a few browsers and PC/Mac.
OK, enough of a rant for today ;)
Most of my sites visitors are using IE 5 or 6. But, browsers are not compliant and my site still has a few vistors using Netscape 2,3,4 and IE 3, 4.
Although I'd expect about 2% of your visitors to be using IE 4 or Netscape 4, I'd be very suprised if any sizable number of people are actually using IE 3 and Netscape 2 & 3. I haven't had a single IE 3.0 user ever on my site since February 2002 (when it opened). I get around 1,000 visitors per week.
Older browsers see an unstyled page, but it is very quick to load.
