Best Not Viewed In Internet Explorer

Something I often forget to mention to new clients is this: Don’t view the progress of your new site in Internet Explorer (IE). After I call a client with a first draft, I usually send a desperate e-mail:

DON’T LOOK AT IT IN IE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I, like many of my colleagues hate IE. We don’t develop in IE or work in IE. What we do is develop in Firefox or Chrome and then, when everything is ready to go, we go back and tweak it with IE.

Now this may seem strange, especially since IE has such a huge market share, but the fact is that IE plays by its own rules. There are other browsers…and then there’s IE. So what any rational developer does is code for any other browser and then after the client is happy with the look, go back and tweak it for Internet Explorer.

The other issue with Internet Explorer is that there are many features supported by other browsers that either don’t work in older versions of IE or work differently. So it’s important to have a fallback position. You need to understand that some design choices may not render the same in older versions of Internet Explorer or perhaps not at all.