Does the current economic climate justify selective discounts, such as ignoring IE6?

[XLCowBoy]

First, this isn't intended to be an anti-IE6 thread, but a thread on selective discounts et al.

A client asked me to design a logo recently, and after I gave him a quote, he asked for a discount because of the current economic climate. I offered him an agreement that I would lower the price if he agrees to a lower number of revisions and variations. He agreed.

Another client that pays me by the hour asked me to ignore IE6, and asked me instead to display an IE6 pop-up informing users that they are using a browser that is unsafe and outdated, and that they should upgrade their browser if they wish to have the best experience possible. He said that due to the current economic climate, he couldn't justify spending the same amount on IE6 testing as he used to (the site is dynamic and uses a lot of ajax).

Now, the question is: do you think that this is acceptable? or not? If so, would you offer the discounts up front? (e.g. detail them and their individual costs in the quotation/contract agreement).

[JeffWalden]

The way I see it, if the client would is paying hourly and wants to dictate which tasks you perform then they are completely within their rights. Should you offer that with every project? Well, maybe. That would depend what your proposals look like. When I submit a proposal it breaks everything down and allows the user to pick an choose which items they want. IE6 compatibility is one of them. Of course, you would have the responsibility to explain to the client exactly what IE6 compatibility is and what would happen if they don't add that on.

It sounds like the logo deal is the same. I wouldn't offer a lower price just because of the economic climate but I would do as you did and scale back the project in order to reduce the price.

[IndyCash]

I've always thought any site that tries to tell me what browser I should use is worth avoiding visiting if I can.. especially the ones that say stupid things like "get a proper browser".. I suspect people who are so lame to add a self important crack like that are very likely not technically proficient enough to be telling anyone anything themselves anyway.

And saying "your browser isn't secure enough for my site" is almost as rude I think. (whatever the facts may be)


Anyway, I think it's reasonable for the person to specify they don't want hours spent on ie6 compatibility if they wish, and the client who tried to hit you up for a discount probably did it the right way too. (and you handled it very well)

[felgall]

And saying "your browser isn't secure enough for my site" is almost as rude I think. (whatever the facts may be)

Well if they have something on their site where one of the 650+ security holes in IE6 will place their site at risk then they are fully justified in not allowing that security hole anywhere near their site and telling people to use a proper web browser if they want to visit. After all its not like Microsoft didn't release a patch to plug all those security holes so not installing the patch (IE7) if you want to visit a site that requires those holes in the browser to be plugged in order to secure the site is only reasonable.

Of course there are very few situations where a site would be placed at risk by those security holes, mostly it is the other way around - which is why home computers running IE6 are almost all on someone's zombie list for when they want to launch DoS attacks.

The better solution since web pages ought to still be usable with JavaScript and CSS disabled is to just present IE6 users with the same plain text version that anyone else using antiquated browsers gets rather than trying to give them the full featured version. That way you don't need to figure out how to get IE6 to look and behave like a proper web browser. For Ajax coding that simply means that you leave out the activeX versions and treat all browsers that do not support the proper request call as not supporting the script.

Doing that will have the added benefit that the only way those visitors will realise what they are missing is when they visit a friend and see the site on that friend's modern browser. Then it will be their friend telling them to get a proper browser rather than you.

[JNation]

I agree with the client. At what point do you say to people with old browsers they should just get on with the program? When there is a version 10 should we still try to make the site compatible for those using version 6? Where does it end? Forever? I think if you choose to stick with an older browser what ever weird stuff that happens is your problem. If 95% of your users use version 7 and 8, should you have to please the other 5% using version 6? Arrrgh, there is always someone in this world swearing some junk stuff is better than the new one even when all evidence points to the opposite.

[XLCowBoy]

The better solution since web pages ought to still be usable with JavaScript and CSS disabled is to just present IE6 users with the same plain text version that anyone else using antiquated browsers gets rather than trying to give them the full featured version. That way you don't need to figure out how to get IE6 to look and behave like a proper web browser. For Ajax coding that simply means that you leave out the activeX versions and treat all browsers that do not support the proper request call as not supporting the script.

Fortunately, that IS how it was put together, so instead of say, lightbox-style confirmations, they would get the basics.

However, that wasn't the case in the past - we would spend hours making sure that the Dynamic HTML/CSS and JS/AJAX would work as close to perfect on every browser, and IE6 and 7 took up the lion's share of the testing work. So it's a bit sad to see that kind of level of quality take a hit due to cost cutting.

Now the new stuff that gets added will no longer be tested on IE6, and people simply see a "sorry, please upgrade"-esque note.

[felgall]

Now the new stuff that gets added will no longer be tested on IE6, and people simply see a "sorry, please upgrade"-esque note.

You shouldn't be asking them to upgrade. Just present them with a basic version of the site and they will not even know what they are missing out on.

[XLCowBoy]

You shouldn't be asking them to upgrade. Just present them with a basic version of the site and they will not even know what they are missing out on.

Off Topic:


They can still view and use the site, but the upgrade note pops up if they're a first-time visitor.

I wouldn't have bothered with the note at that point either, but it was a suggestion I *ahem* may have made early on, and the client has used it on all his sites, so he's decided to stick with it for now.

[SpacePhoenix]

With the current economic climate people might well buy a second hand computer instead of a new one that second hand computer might use IE6 so their is actually a potential for an increase in the number of people using IE6. Normally when I goto car boot sales their is often a few computers up for sale and judging by the style of the case they are probably win95 or win98 era machines.

If someone gets a "please upgrade your browser" message they might think badly of your site and move to a rival's site. A site should degrade but still be usable with older browser versions.

[felgall]

There are of course real web browsers that can be installed and used on even a Windows 95 computer so that you can run IEradicator to get rid of the hundreds of security holes that the computer would otherwise have. You'd also want to run some serious strength security scans on such a computer to get rid of the hundreds of trojans that have almost certainly been installed onto such a computer using those security holes. Anyone buying such a computer thinking that it is cheaper than buying a new computer is mistaken since the cost of fixing an old computer so it will work properly will be much more than the cost of buying a new one. Those buying those old computers are just buying trouble. Unfortunately they are also those who do not know enough about computers to realise any of this or they really would choose the cheaper option of buying new.

[A-OK]

I think the most important issue to be considered is the browser's usage share. Look it up and decide if you can live with losing that percentage of visitors (or in this case, inform your clients of the percentage of visitors that use IE6 and let them make the decision)

Also, if Paypal lets you use IE6 and banks let you use IE6 for online banking, I don't see security as a huge issue. After all when stuff goes wrong, it's usually a liveware problem so I don't think restricting certain browsers is justified, especially not IE6 which still has a sizable usage share.

Check it out:
http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2008...er/browser.php

[graedus_dave]

You're doing a great thing by offering discounts in exchange for reduced work. Your "economic climate discount" in exchange for a lower number of revisions was a brilliant idea.

[felgall]

I think the most important issue to be considered is the browser's usage share. Look it up and decide if you can live with losing that percentage of visitors (or in this case, inform your clients of the percentage of visitors that use IE6 and let them make the decision)

You are not going to lose visitors using IE6 if you provide them with a usable version of the site. You can save a lot of development time by not trying to make it work the exact same way as real web browsers though. Apart from web designers and web developers most people only use one browser so the fact that IE6 users miss out on all the facilities that make the page easier to use will not be obvious to them.

[A-OK]

You are not going to lose visitors using IE6 if you provide them with a usable version of the site. You can save a lot of development time by not trying to make it work the exact same way as real web browsers though. Apart from web designers and web developers most people only use one browser so the fact that IE6 users miss out on all the facilities that make the page easier to use will not be obvious to them.

Well, depends on what you consider usable and how much time you'd spend making that version instead of having your site working normally in IE6. I personally don't have big issues with MSIE6 and most site I visit also work well with it.

[Corey Bryant]

I did not get a chance to read some of the other responses, so there might be a bit of duplication.

It really seems like you have two questions - one about discounts and one about ignoring IE6. It might have been better to split the question. But here goes:

Discounts - I would not consider offering them. Chances are, when you do another job for him, he might want another discount. He might have millions and wants to save as much as he can. The bad economy is probably affecting you as well - don't short-change yourself.

Now, if the customer is a new client, maybe offer a "new client discount". Spell that out in the contract and this might prevent the customer from asking for another discount.

Interner Explorer 6: I would hate to think that people are still using IE6, but out of some of my users on one of my blogs, I had about 18% using IE6, with 79% using IE7, and 3% using IE8 (I am probably a few visits in that one). So, is there already a working site? If so, can you see what browser versions are being used? I would not put up saying their browser is insecure or anything like that (that could open the door for him i.e. people calling / emailing him about their browser being insecure, etc). Maybe a pop-up saying the website works / looks better in Internet Explorer 7 and above.

[felgall]

Discounts - I would not consider offering them. Chances are, when you do another job for him, he might want another discount.

I think you missed the whole point of the original post. There was one question asked that cannot be split into two.

The question was about offering a discount in return for doing less work by not including support for browsers that work significantly different from the standards such as IE6.

The discussion is basically about whether it is worth offering a 25% discount on the original price by reducing the amount of work required by the same amount. The person doing the work still receives the same hourly rate as they would without the discount as they can complete the work in 25% less time and the person they are doing the work for pays 25% less making it more affordable to them. The only losers are those using IE6 who don't see the site quite the same way people using a proper web browser do and if it is done properly they don't lose much and don't know what they have lost by using an antiquated browser..

If the person wants a discount on subsequent work then it can be given on the same basis. In fact since you are making each job cheaper for them you are likely to end up collecting more work from them and from their friends and so would potentially make more money by offering a discount in return for not making IE6 work the exact same way as modern web browsers than you would if you didn't offer the discount.

It all really comes down to whether or not the client is prepared to accept that while their page will still be usable to those using antiquated browsers such as IE6 that the page will not look exactly the same as it will for people using more modern ones. The time savings in not needing to support IE6 fully would come from not needing to test all the special code that would have been needed to make IE6 behave like modern browsers. The way in which you'd help the client to make the decision would be to supply information on the expected percentage of visitors likely to be using IE6 who would therefore see a slightly different page layout if they take up the discount. They can then decide whether the cost saving to them is worth it in return for that percentage of their visitors having a not quite so user friendly version of the page.

[Corey Bryant]

The question was about offering a discount in return for doing less work by not including support for browsers that work significantly different from the standards such as IE6.

That was what I was somewhat thinking, but I guess found it odd that a client would actually understand / know something like that. Maybe he has been around the block a couple of times and understands some than most others, which of course if always good. I think it was the another client part that threw me for another question.

Now if this client is savvy enough to understand the differences between the browsers, it might mean he would be particular. There are a lot more browsers out there than just Internet Explorer, so which other ones does he (not) care about?

[felgall]

Now if this client is savvy enough to understand the differences between the browsers, it might mean he would be particular. There are a lot more browsers out there than just Internet Explorer, so which other ones does he (not) care about?

There are four major rendering engines - gecko, webkit, presto, and trident. All of the browsers using the first three of those rendering engines will all do a fairly good job of being able to handle a web page that correctly follows the standards and so all of those thousands of browsers should work if your pages are compliant to the standards. Mostly you'd test in the most popular browser using each of those rendering engines and so would check your page on Firefox, Safari, and Opera in order to confirm that they all handle the page near identically with no significant differences (the chances of finding any noticeable differences between browsers using any of those three rendering engines is very small). That just leaves the trident rendering engine which is lagging a long way behind the other three in its support for the standards. The only browser to use the trident rendering engine is internet explorer (as that rendering engine is proprietary Microsoft code whereas gecko and webkit are open source). As such the only browser out of the several thousand different browsers that is likely to have problems with standard compliant web pages is Internet Explorer. Also the only browser that renders significantly different between browser versions is Internet Explorer and that is therefore the only browser where you may need to treat different versions differently in what you code.

Looking at it a different way would be to consider the percentage of people using each browser and determining which to support using the percentage usage as a basis. These figures will vary between different web sites so I'll use the December percentages from my site in the following discussion (other sites will have slightly different percentages). The most popular browsers in order for my site are Firefox 40%, IE7 27%, IE6 22%, Mozilla 2.8%, Safari 2.6%, Opera 1.8%. All the thousands of other browsers between them make up the remaining 3.8%. This means that the only browser getting under 1% of the visitors to my site (apart from obsolete browsers that haven't been completely abandoned yet) that uses a different rendering engine from those used by larger percentages of my visitors is IE8 and that browser hasn't even been released yet and so can be ignored for the moment. All of the other browsers with smaller numbers of visitors use the same rendering engine as one of the far more popular browsers and should therefore be reasonably expected to render the page the same as that more popular browser. That again puts us back to where we have Firefox, IE7, IE6, Safari, and Opera as the most popular representatives of each rendering engine and with IE7 and IE6 being the two most likely to require special code to cater for their being so far behind the standards of the others (with IE6 being much further behind than IE7 and therefore requiring a lot more to fix it that IE7 does).

Based on all this I can reasonably say that creating standard compliant web pages will cover me for 99.99% of the different browsers out there and about 50% of my visitors. Spending the extra time getting my pages to work in IE7 has no real effect on the percentage of different browsers supported but does increase the percentage of people getting the full feature version of my site to about 78%. I then need to decide regarding IE6 whether the differences people using that browser see compared to what everyone else sees is significant enough for me to need to patch for it. I make those decisions on a case by case basis depending on just how much different the page is in that browser and how involved it is to fix. As the percentage of affected people is falling the incentive to put the effort into fixing it is falling as well.

Basically the top three browsers to consider dropping support for based on the number of people using them and how far behind the standards they are would be IE6, IE7, and then IE8. All of the other browsers that don't display standard compliant web pages properly are at least several versions behind the current version of that particular browser and have no significant number of people using it. If those people can't use your page then chances are they can't use most other pages either and really ought to upgrade to a more modern browser. Those using IE6, IE7 and IE8 really ought to do so as well but the percentage of people using those outdated browsers is too big to completely ignore them.

Anyway the client doesn't need to know any of this as you'd explain the discount offer to then as - IE6 is different enough from the other browsers that getting the pages to work identically on that browser to other browsers will take 25% of the total time. If instead we make the page usable to people using that browser but without worrying about its working exactly the same in other browsers then the project can be done 25% faster and will therefore only cost you 75% of what it will cost if we male sure it works the same for the 22% of people still using that browser as it does for more modern browsers. The number of people affected will become smaller as those people upgrade to more modern browsers so by next year the percentage of people affected by this decision will be much smaller.

[BlazeMiskulin]

I don't think it's unreasonable to include a message which states "This site contains features which may not be supported by your browser. To get the full experience of the site, we suggest you upgrade to one of these free browsers: <list goes here>"

As a site owner, you've paid the developer good money to get advanced functionality on your website--all those shiny bells and whistles. If you just put up a basic page for the IE6 people (for example) without telling them that there are shiny bells and whistles for them to see, you've wasted money. Most of the standards-compliant browsers are free (even Opera has a free version), so it's not like the customer needs to purchase something in order to see your site. And, if they don't want to upgrade, that's fine. They can use the basic version.

I find it irresponsible, however, to not inform your customers that there's something better. It's like a car dealer hiding the sports cars from you because you drove up in a station wagon.

[bluedreamer]

There may be a justification for offering incentives to prospective clients if the economic downturn has affected you as an individual and you need the work.

As for clients asking for discounts I think that's fine, but for every discount you give there is a price, in the case of not doing the IE6 thing, and the clients is happy with that, then all you do a bit less work, so in reality you're just reducing the overall cost of the project. Call it a discount or just a lower bill!