Will not supporting IE or older browsers drive away potential visitors/users of my site? [closed]
- by XToro
Normally a SO browser but this question doesn't fit there, hopefully it fits here.
I just want to ask from web designers' point of view if it's wrong to not care about supporting Internet Explorer or older browsers.
The site I'm designing looks great in all browsers except IE9-. There are certain things that IE doesn't support or behave like other browsers; webkit stuff, some CSS styles, drop-and-drop files from OS etc etc, but it all works great in Safari, FireFox, Chrome etc.
Should I be that concerned? I know there are several people that use IE, but it's limitations have just been causing me more work by having to come up with workarounds. From what I've read, many of the issues I've been having should be solved with IE10, but not everybody keeps up to date. I know of several people who are still using IE6!
Again, I'm hoping this is the right place to ask a question like this, and if not, please point me to the right stack exchange site instead of just downvoting me.
Thanks!
EDIT: Upon further research....
So far this year, IE(all versions) and Chrome have been neck and neck as the top, with IE only squeaking by Chrome, and FireFox a close 3rd. But looking at the top 10 browsers, IE6 doesn't even show up on this list in which the lowest percentage is 1.92%.
Source : http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php?year=2012&month=7
Having a look at this other site, IE6 shows up in 11th place out of 12, just before "Other"
http://www.sitepoint.com/browser-trends-february-2012/
This makes me a little more wary of not spending more time on IE compatibility. However, my site will not be going to a live beta until October or November, and I'm hoping that IE10 will have more features coded into it.
Currently, I've written my upload page which is a "drag-and-drop files from the OS" type to simply display "IE is not supported", leaving no other option for IE users to upload pictures because I've spent so much time writing the uploader which does many things other than just upload the files. I will be changing this kinda cold "Access Denied" to a suggestion to upgrade, or install other browsers, with download links for each.
Big thanks for the posts here and the interesting links!
