Common mistake
Posted on July 08, 2002 @ 17:24 in General
This article on News.com discusses the fact that many websites are developed only with Microsoft's Internet Explorer in mind. Although most websites initially show up okay in other browsers than IE, complex features, such as e-commerce, often are coded incorporating non-standard IE-only features and hence don't work in other browsers.
My bank, ABN-Amro, is a point in case (and no, they don't deserve a direct link!). They want me to use their web-interface for online banking instead of an ancient DOS application, which still happily does everything I want it to. I can view most of the bank's website and they assure me that their secure webservice has been tested across platforms and browsers, but I just cannot order the service online, because their online order-forms work only in IE. Duh.
Anyway, the News.com article mentions, about halfway through, about a website: "...the site [now] supports newer versions of Netscape--although it still does not support Opera and other less popular browsers."
Hello? The problem with that website has nothing to do with supporting esoteric browsers with totally alien quirks!!! (err, other than IE...) The problem is that the website DOESN'T support STANDARDS! It's a common mistake to think that you have to support a load of non-IE browsers, while in fact by supporting the W3.org webstandards, you support all major browsers. The recent version 6 browsers from Netscape, Mozilla, Opera 6 and even IE 6 support all major World Wide Web Consortium webstandards (of course some minor quirks and bugs remain, but nothing as bad as the version 4 and IE5 browsers!).
Webdesigners should realize that now all these new browsers are taking hold on people's computers, they have an alternative to coding various versions of their websites or simply shutting out a certain percentage of the people: webstandards!
Hey, if I can make a website that validates and looks pretty decent across browsers without any formal training, then professional webdesigners should be able to that too. (And to preempt some complaints, yes, a fully compliant version of the frontpage is in the works as well.)
[update:] For a slightly different take on the matter, check this article.
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