PushON Ltd » Accessibility

Is it time to bury Internet Explorer (IE7) for good?

Ali Ashik — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 14:52:33 +0000

We’ve all been there. For the past couple of years it’s been a nightmare for us developers to spend hours either changing our CSS or HTML mark-up just so Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) can render our webpages correctly. Since the launch of IE7 back in 2006, web technologies and web standards have changed significantly. Whenever I develop websites for clients, I usually don’t have any problems in regards to testing it cross browser, 98% of the time my websites work seamlessly on pretty much all the modern browsers until I’m asked to test it on IE7.

It is understood that most developers (including myself) still optimise websites for IE7, simply because there happens to be a small minority of users who still use that browser. Latest stats as of February 2013 show that usage of IE7 has dropped to less than 4% globally. The question we need to ask is, is it still worth putting in the effort to optimise websites for IE7 for this minority of users?

Based on my previous experience, it takes an enormous amount of time to make a website or web application optimised for IE7. Due to these problems, and the very small percentage of people who even use the browser, it doesn’t make it worthwhile as far as time, effort and money is concerned. Yes, it would be nice to have a website that is compatible with all browsers, but what are the chances of your visitors (target audience) accessing your website using IE7?

Why should we stop optimising for IE7?

Big name websites such as Google and Facebook officially announced last year that they no longer support older browsers like IE7 because they don’t have the capabilities to handle today’s modern web browsing needs. Google has urged people to update their browsers for a better and safer browsing experience. Facebook’s timeline has been completely phased out from IE7. When users visit their Facebook profile page they won’t see the timeline, but instead will be presented with the old profile page.

Some ecommerce websites have even started charging an ‘IE7 tax’. Australian retailer www.kogan.com was one of the first websites to come up with the idea of charging their users with an extra 6.8% tax. The website detects when visitors are using IE7 and issues a pop-up warning about the tax if the users purchasing goods from their website. The purpose of this approach is to encourage their users to upgrade to a modern browser for a better browsing experience of their website, thus avoiding the extra charge at the same time.

Why are people still using IE7?

One of the biggest reasons people are still stuck with IE7 is because some of them are still using Microsoft’s older operating systems. IE7 came pre-installed when Windows Vista was first launched in 2006, an operating system that many PC owners still use. Microsoft has also used several methods in an attempt to get its users to upgrade, but some organisations find it very expensive and time consuming to get all of their PC’s upgraded to modern standards. Most importantly it is our fault as developers as in the past we have spent hours optimising websites for IE7. This has only encouraged IE7 users to continue their browsing experience with IE7.

What can we do encourage users to upgrade their browsers?

We can use similar tactics like the Australian retailer “Kogan”.
Create landing pages that can detect if the users are using IE7 and provide them with a warning and upgrade solution.
Use badges and small banners somewhere on your website to encourage users to upgrade. Last year a website called “The IE7 Countdown” launched to dedicate the countdown of IE7. They provide code snippets that can be easily embedded on your website to display tiny badges and banners. www.theie7countdown.com

I think it is time to stop spending unnecessary time fixing IE7 bugs and instead using that time to do something more productive.

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Full Blown WordPress CMS

Mark Mayne — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 08:57:01 +0000

WordPress is all to frequently viewed as a basic blogging package however the abundance of plugins and ease of use make it an ideal fully integrated CMS system. At Pushon we have recently done a rebuild and redesign for an industrial and home insulation company called Sprayseal. We found that using WordPress as a CMS was a real joy and believe its SEO friendly features will help Sprayseal perform well in the search engines.

At first we were slightly skeptical as we wanted to make use of stylish drop down menus and insert customisable video’s. Luckily we found some excellent plugins for such things. This is where WordPress really comes into its own. We used the Multi-Level Navigation plugin and also the Smart Youtube plugin. We found these gave us excellent results.

The other thing we were slightly concerned about was accessibility. We are strong believers in accessibility and wanted to ensure we could continue to deliver accessible sites. Fortunately WordPress doesn’t incorporate a lot of useless code in to a site. Although we have used WordPress as a full CMS before we found the updates in the new version to be extremely useful. The content restore feature especially. We are very pleased with the new design and if you ever need home or industrial insulation services give Sprayseal a try.

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404 Pages Made Easy

Mark Mayne — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 10:54:23 +0000

Google has just launched a new feature in webmaster tools which helps users create custom 404 pages. Custom 404 pages are of course a great way to help your users navigate through to relevant pages if they type in a wrong URL or get lost. A regular 404 page will often put users off or make them think that your site doesn’t exist. Many webmasters overlook custom 404 pages but with this new widget they should be able to create one within a matter of minutes.

404 page

Google is of course a strong believer of custom 404 pages and recently dedicated an entire week to 404 pages. Google is not the only believer as a quick search custom 404 pages in Google will provide you with plenty of sites offering tips on how to optimise your 404 pages. They include, what links are best to include and how to write exciting and enticing text. Some of them are well worth the read. Although there is some debate over the finer details I believe in just keeping things simple. When users arrive on your 404 page they essentially just want to get to where they are going. They don’t want to be provided with hundred of different options and long blocks of text. The other thing worth noting is that 404 pages, in some cases can improve bounce rates.

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Shocking ROI for short term goverment site

Roy Wilding — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:55:53 +0000

Here’s a great example of a how not to go about creating a successful short term micro site.

The department for Children, Schools and families developed an interactive website aimed at encouraging children and “young people” to feedback their ideas and requirements for play spaces. The resulting website can be found at http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/playspace/

Apparantly the website cost £50,000 +VAT to develop, is due to close in August this year and has recieved just under 10,000 visitors since launch. That’s an approximate cost per visitor of £6. The source of these details can be read House of Commons Publications and Records website.

I wonder if the developers of the site were wearing a mask when they asked for their £50K? The site is built poorly failing validation for W3C guidlines and accessibility checks and the application is dull and completely unrewarding for the user.

Perhaps if they had spent some of the budget on marketing the application and engaging with a company with a proven track record of developing engaging content for children they might have been more successful.

Still, it’s only tax payers money isn’t it? and they’ll probably double the amount of visitors in the next week due to all the bad press it’ll get for failing. Well done!

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Check Your Website Works In Other Browsers

Katrina Gallagher — Thu, 29 May 2008 10:31:09 +0000

Internet Explorer still holds a majority of browser share (approximately 74.83% as of April 2008), however Firefox and Safari have been showing a gradual increase over the past few years.

The trend is likely to continue. The Asus EEE comes installed with a customised Linux operating system, and Dell started offering their computers with Ubuntu, a feature and graphics rich Linux based operating system. Many of them feature the opensource Firefox browser out of the box.

Internet Explorer has an advantage because it is installed by default in most home and office computers, along with the Windows Operating System. Firefox is growing through recommendation. Most people won’t know the difference – they don’t care what browser they use, they just want to view content on the Internet.

I have to use Internet Explorer for two websites, one for online banking, and one for updating a clients website using their content management system. Both of which don’t work in anything other than Internet Explorer.

It’s only when you explore the features of a different browser that you would be compelled to change. Whenever I go back to IE, whether it’s to use these sites or if I’m using someone else’s computer, it highlights the slow, crashing features of the market leader.

It seems mad, that some developers and organisations are still ignoring a massive, and growing 25% of their audience.

P.S. get Firefox

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How To Achieve Nothing (SEO How To)

Katrina Gallagher — Thu, 15 May 2008 18:30:36 +0000

Here’s a quick run-down of how you can achieve zero visibility in search engines and zero conversions for your website.

Please use all methods listed to ensure your website achieves absolutely nothing.

Add a splash page with music and heavy moving images. This is like a little dance to get people in the mood for visiting the actual content of your site
Create a completely Flash website
- Make sure you don’t add any useful metadata
- Don’t create a HTML version
- Don’t check whether your visitor uses Flash, or what version
- Don’t optimise your files, everyone’s got broadband now so it doesn’t matter
- Don’t provide alternative text
- Don’t use keyboard access
- Auto play music files
Don’t use an analytics package to track what’s going on with your website, it’s much more exciting playing in the dark
Use a professional development package like Microsoft Frontpage, or even better MS Word
Use JavaScript for your menus
Keep your JavaScript neatly embedded at the top of your main pages, above your content
Use images for your text
Don’t bother with the alt text for your images
Ignore that new fangled CSS, use lots of in-line styles, you can change any text to any font/colour/style combo, mmm… colourful
Use frames to construct your pages
Use tables to lay out your content
Don’t do any testing, it’s important to avoid testing the following
- Forms
- Automated emails
- Checkout process
- The url your Pay Per Click adverts go to
- How the site looks in different browsers or platforms
- How your site looks with Flash, JavaScript and Images turned off
Make some of your pages PDF, Word or Excel files, variety is the spice of life
Don’t add anything to the metadata or the title of your document, the default should work for everyone
Make your users work for your product, remember you’re worth it
- Make visitors register before they can browse
- Ask as many questions as possible on forms – you never know when you’ll need to know your customer’s eye colour or fax number
- Spread your checkout forms over a number of long pages
- Don’t indicate how long they have left in the checkout process, it would ruin the surprise
Don’t reassure your visitors
- If you have payment processes on your site, don’t bother with those SSL certificates, my mate Dave can get you one
- When the purchase is complete, send them straight to the home page, you’re customers are strong, ‘thank you’ pages are for the weak
Use sexy add-ons that may make the site load time longer, but make your site look wicked
- Use pop-ups
- Use scrolling, blinking, flashing glittering text (think MySpace baby!)
- Make your logo spin, once you’ve learnt how to do it, you can make every logo spin
Finally, once you’ve made your website, don’t change it, leave it to mature, like a lovely Stilton.

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Why Build Accessible Websites?

Katrina Gallagher — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:37:06 +0000

Google are developing an Accessible search that gives precedence to websites built to web standards
Older people, who are not necessarily disabled often have some of the following problems:

arthritus – may not be able to use the mouse; keyboard shortcuts are important.
poor eyesight – large text size and good contrasting colours can help
hearing difficulties – text version of audio content can be useful.

It’s a legal requirement in the UK that your website is reasonably accessible to people with various disabilities.
The Internet can be extremely important for disabled people, as demonstrated by this quote from Lynn Holdsworth, screen reader user, Web Developer and Programmer “For me being online is everything. It’s my hi-fi, my source of income, my supermarket, my telephone. It’s my way in.”
Roughly 8.5 million people in the UK have some form of disability, and 2 million people are visually impaired. That’s a huge number of people to exclude.
Accessibly websites built to W3C standards tend to have lighter pages, with less code, which mean less work for your server and lower server costs.
Lighter pages also mean they load faster, so your visitors will have a better experience.
Well structured, well coded, accessible website will be easier for all users to navigate.
Search Engine Spiders are effectively blind – they can’t see your images, they won’t appreciate your fancy heading image, and they don’t know what’s going on in your Flash movie… unless you mark-up your code correctly.
Appropriate page titles and descriptions written uniquely for each page improves accessibility, but also increases your chances for each page to be listed in the search engines for a variety of topics. Leading to higher traffic.
The Internet is becoming more mobile, more people are using mobile browsing, which means lots of different browsers, screen sizes and disabled functions such as JavaScript, Flash and images.
Accessible sites are easier to view using a slow connection, for example Mobile Internet or dial up. This is because pages are lighter, styles and images can be turned off and the content of the page can still be read.

Accessible Websites… Salford's got the idea

Katrina Gallagher — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:12:53 +0000

The Government is getting serious about its commitment to accessibility, and Salford City Council are leading the way with an excellent example.

To the untrained eye, the website doesn’t seem anything out of the ordinary – it doesn’t sing, or dance. But the site is extremely easy to navigate, information is organised very well, and the developers have gone to great lengths to ensure the site can be used by people with various disabilities. They even give the link to a ~~free~~ text to speech software program to help visually impaired users.

Have a read of their accessibility statement, and see if there are things you could do to make your website more accessible. It’s tough to ensure your site is completely compliant, but best efforts will pay off. It’s not just disabled users you will be helping – it will help people with non standard browsers – people using PDA’s or mobile Internet for example.

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