Tristan BotlyTristan Botly

If they're using IE6, then there's a good chance that they're also using an older computer. The data presented details nothing about whether or not your IE6 users are buying anything, just that they are staying on your site for a longer period. How efficiently is the website built? Are the old machines that these users are running causing them to load the site slower? Are they simply on dial-up and it takes a while for them to browse your site? Not enough details. The amount of information given is not sufficient enough to bring the conclusion you make.

A fair point and possibly my article agenda was not as clear as it should have been.

Data wise I totally agree this article is not a case for IE6.

It is more a digestible way of raising the issue I believe exists in saying the % decline of IE6 users is a case for not supporting it. (That is until it is literally 0 or very close to it)

This article also doesn’t criticize javascript application heavy sites such as Facebook of Google Docs because ultimately to support IE6 will slow the potential of what they can do. My hope is they will be the driving force behind the ultimate end to IE6.

The focus is on what I would consider bread and butter website development for most agencies. (The ones where most of our profit is actually made)

Those standard sites selling products or services where even a tiny % of Internet Explorer 6 users could be customers. I read a lot on the web about IE 6 being dead and people asking can we stop supporting it as it sucks (which of course it does) and I wanted to put across the flip view of thinking about it.

Ultimately if we ran a small / medium business and it was our money an agency was spending (including PPC) I would want to make sure every user gets as close to the same opportunity to buy from me regardless of what browser they have.

If when thinking about it from the business side you are of the same view as me then really should you try and push a developer agenda that in your heart of hearts you know if you were the other side of the table you wouldn’t accept?

Interesting provocation, but without more data we can't tell if increased time on a site is a positive or a negative thing... they could be spending more time because they are engaged or adversely they could be confused.

In either case, I can't see how using IE6 would increase engagement over say Chrome or Firefox (unless bizarrely the site supported IE6 and not modern browsers).

It would be interesting to see if the trend continued though... perhaps it would indicate who a typical IE6 user is (i.e. lack of upgrade / old PC would indicate lack of technical knowledge and as such maybe the site's user experience requires a fair amount of skill to comprehend?)

The thing is the sample data isn't large enough to make many conclusions... and anyway, we all know that IE6 sucks. :)