Amount of extra work caused by IE6 for web application development?

Question

Even with frameworks like GWT you end up scratching your head because of IE6 specific problems.

How much discount you would give if you do not have to support IE6? Or how much of the overall time is spent on IE6 issues?

Answer 1

Well, as an example from a recent project I worked on (and the IE6 wrangling came down to me) the total project cost was supposed to include getting the site working in IE6. Then it turns out the client had a very complex design layout.

In the end, we probably spent 7 man-weeks solely on making sure the site worked perfectly in IE6 (and was near pixel-perfect which the client demanded as well). IE7 required approximately an hour or so for some tweaks. Every other relevant browser (FF 2+, Chrome, Safari 3+, Opera 9.6+) rendered and acted correctly immediately without any tweaks required.

We have now changed our standard contract to explicitly exclude pixel-perfect IE6 rendering, unless the client wishes us to quote separately. At that point we can see the design before saying how much it'll cost.

Answer 2

I can say a lot of time, but based on the project its self, for example, if it contains a lot of transparent images, .png image formats, curves, animations.

It will take nearly double the design time :(.

Here some links about this issue:

Definitive Guide to Taming the IE6 Beast

IE6 Must Die for the Web to Move On

YouTube Will Be Next To Kiss IE6 Support Goodbye

10 Fixes That Solve IE6 Problems

ie6 on the way out

Answer 3

It depends on your project. Using certain CSS/HTML practices and using solid JavaScript frameworks you can avoid the major problems. The fastest way to abolish IE6 issues is probably Dean Edwards' ie8.js script (demo).

Beyond that, the major time-consumer is if you need to implement a design that could benefit a lot from CSS3 features. Things like rounded corners quickly eat up time, since you need to create images for each element, use additional elements for dynamically sizable elements, etc.

I've never found IE6 to take up a lot of additional time, but that is because I know that my design has to work in IE6 from the start, so I use a proper CSS reset and other CSS techniques that I know work in IE6.

However, if a client wants this great design they saw a demo of in the latest WebKit browser to work in IE6, you should probably avoid them unless they're ready to pay for it...

Luckily, in a year I believe there will have been a drastic change in IE6 usage on private computers. Partly because Microsoft is pushing their new browsers, and partly because other browser developers are becoming more aggressive (Google in particular.) Even the browsers in mobile phones released today are far ahead of IE6.

Unfortunately, many companies will probably hold on to IE6 as long as they continue to use ancient web applications for their intranets...