Who pays attention to what browser?

Browsers and the amount of time you spend programming for them

[n10si_t]

Some issues [webmasterworld.com] I am having with Safari have got me to wondering how much weight this audience gives to which browsers. In the course of developing a website, it seems like a disproportionate amount of time goes into ensuring that the site looks good on a small percentage of browsers. How do you justify spending 25% of your website development effort making sure the site looks good for 3% of your target audience?

Obviously, IE6(pc) is the big gorilla you have to make happy. Fortunately NN7 and Mozilla render very similarly between pc and mac, and personally I haven't had much trouble making them happy (although I would be interested in hearing horror stories there, too :-).

But beyond there, where does it go?
Opera?
IE5.2(mac)?
Safari?

Personally, IE and Safari on the mac are what give me fits. But my guess is that those represent a significant chunk of the browsers in the mac world, and I don't want to shut out the mac audience.

Does it just boil down to target audience numbers vs. development time for you?
Is your target audience primarily one platform/browser or another?
Is it a matter of principle?
Are you out to change the world, or just get the job done?

And to put your remarks in some context, are you developing for enjoyment or production? (Do you get paid for your development time?)

Thanks!

[txbakers]

Hi and welcome to the forums.

We've pretty well beat this subject into the ground.

Here is a recent discussion:
[webmasterworld.com...]

Enjoy!

[mcavill]

i just try and make my code comply to html 4.01 and that's it. i test with firebird / opera occasionally but don't lose too much sleep over it - i guess 97%+ are going to be IE5+ so no point worrying about the rest too much.

i've had macs/netscape/webtv browsers hanging around for a few mins to i guess they see my sites ok, and it's such a small percentage so i'd rather write more content / look for links / read posts on this forum than worry about how my site performs with all browsers.

My feeling is if you can aim too be fairly (i'm sure some people have stronger opinions) html compliant most uptodate browsers / spiders will handle it, but that's just my feeling on it all...

[archives]

n10si_t

This whole topic depends strongly on whether you believe in, need to support or are directed to support accessibility measures because of your company policy.

In past times this topic has been debated primarily by people who have a selfish attitude to their clients/visitors.

As I am a worker for the Federal Government all of our websites MUST be compliant to various accessibility standards and guidelines. That said I should also point out you cannot possibliy programme for all users. My stats show visitors using Netscape 2 - Netscape 2, what they can be seeing and what functionality they have who knows!?

If your client base is two browsers behind and remains there programme for them. I have my team programming our wesbites for IE4+ and Netscape4+ plus Opera5+ . Our primary audience is IE5+ with a steady growth into IE6. Most of the variations in browsers is maintained using CSS.

Remember you website(s) are only viable if they are relevant to your target audiences. Put your audience first and don't strive to change them.