A friend directed me to this site , belonging to a creative director at Squarespace, and containing the following message for IE6 users:
Hi, if you are coming to this site via Internet Explorer 6, you might not be getting the best experience possible. Honestly, I can’t even begin to think about what your entire experience on the internet must be like? (…probably like riding a bike on the highway while cars blow by you on their way to Costco to get gallons of mayonnaise and 60-inch plasma TV’s). How will you ever be able to use this website?????? You wont. You’re an asshole and your browser is an asshole. So look, I’m going to be honest: I kind of hate you. BUT we c-a-n make this work. Here is what I am going to need you to do: fire up your Toshiba ShitBook© that weighs about 45 pounds, wipe the Cheeto dust off the screen, download Safari ( http://www.apple.com/safari/download/ ), delete Internet Explorer from your computer, punch yourself in the face, and get me a pulled pork sandwich.
Wow! I was reminded of this Digg survey which revealed that users who use old browsers generally do so because it’s out of their control, concluding:
Giving them a message saying, “Hey! Upgrade!” in this case is not only pointless; it’s sadistic.
Certainly, our creative director would have some empathy for users, yes? But perhaps that sort of research is beyond his grasp. So I’ve taken the liberty of rewriting his message in plainer terms:
Hi, if you are coming to this site via Internet Explorer 6, you might not be getting the best experience possible. Really, it’s clear you can’t afford the things that I have. You’re probably fat and poor, and I’d like to remind you that I am not. Just look at the brands I choose! Remember, in high school, how people would actually get angry at you for not having cool sneakers? This is totally not like that. Good day.
The only thing on this guy’s site that absolutely can’t be replicated on IE6 is the floating image in the bottom right which tells you which fonts were used on his site. Boo-freaking-hoo.
I could care less about this Art Director and his opinion of web browsers. IE6 is terrible and should never be used when an alternative is possible, but the visitor isn’t an asshole if they are using what is available on a company / lab / school / library computer.
He makes his money on having an opinion – it’s the one thing all artists must have. I feel sorry for any company that decides to trust this guy’s opinion; isolating potential customers is bad business. A simple message like YouTube displays "Your web experience would be better with Browser A, Browser B, or Browser C" would get the point across.
Two points to ponder:
1.) He just got the #2 ranking in Google’s search results for "asshole IE6" because this footer is on his site.
2.) His page is 13 errors away from W3C validation (with the current content).
Hold the onions. Or add Google Chrome Frame.
http://code.google.com/chrome/chromeframe/
IE is an absolute piece of shit, anyone who has ever had to do web development knows this. I understand this web masters frustration, and completely support him. THe fact that we put up with IE for so long has been a bad thing.
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