I just completed a 10 month web design project, and as I expected some people are unhappy with it. The people who are unhappy are very few, but they are very vocal. The people who are unhappy also happen to use Netscape 4 as their default browser.

The reason they're unhappy is the new design caters to people who use a version 6 browser (IE 5.0+, NS 6.0+, ) and not users of the version 4 browsers. Basically what happens is when you go to the page with an older browser, it forwards the user to a text-only page that, well, it's text-only and doesn't look very nice, but it does the job.

Now it was never our intention to piss people off, nor did we choose to neglect NS4 users. The decision to force NS4 users to the text-only page was made after a lot of thought and discussion on the part of my department. We felt that in trying to cater to everyone, we neglected the vast majority of people who have are up-to-date. I won't quote numbers (because they vary from site to site), but the percentage of users using NS4 and other older browsers is very small compared to all other users. The decision was made with a heavy heart, because we knew that some people wouldn't agree.

I foresee many months of complaints from the vocal minority, but I just have to remember that there are many more people who appriciate newer, better things, and even if they're silent, they're still there. Personally I feel that there comes a point when you have to move on, otherwise you never grow. It took me a long time to move from DOS to Win95, so I can appriciate growing pains, but as a developer I think sometimes you have to make the hard decision for people. They may not like it, they may leave you in favor of someone else, but in the end I think you're probably better off because you end up with a better product.

Has anyone else run into similar growing pains when their designs? If so, how did you deal with them? Do you try to cater to everyone, or do you cater to the majority? Have you found a good balance of the two?

I'm really curious to hear about other people dealing with similar issues, because I think it's going to continue to be an issue for a very long time as technology continues to advance.

- Arashi

In reply to OT: Web Design - Catering to Everyone by arashi

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