Does SXSW Hate Microsoft?
I remember in the early days of the Web it wasn’t uncommon for a site to tell you that you could only view the site in a particular browser, or that if you didn’t have a specific resolution you might not see everything. Eventually, web designers figured out that rather than telling the user how to browse, they would design for the user and ensure the site rendered correctly in the major browsers and most common resolutions.
Apparently, the folks at SXSW didn’t get the memo that you design your site for your users. I received an email invite to rate the panels I attended at SXSW, clicked on the link to go to http://rate.sxsw.com/, and got this:
For a presumably high-tech conference, creating a page that rejects the browser with the largest usage rate is just, well, weird. Is this some kind of elitist “we don’t like Microsoft” attitude at work? And whatever you think about IE, or Microsoft, or any other software product or company, should it influence the experience of your site users in a negative way?
Well, even if you assume that the SXSW population skews to Firefox, is it still good design practice to block IE? If I’m designing a site, I think it should render in an acceptable way for any browser or resolution with more than a few percent share. Only the arrogant tell their users how to browse.
Roger