Microsoft has recently launched its latest version of Internet Explorer 8, and as with any major browser release you need to be aware of how this can impact your site.
At 4MAT, we want your site to look its best in as many browsers as possible and our sites are cross browser tested as part of the build process. Unfortunately it’s not possible for us to legislate for future browser releases as browser developers often make changes that affect the layout of the site.
Fortunately these issues are usually minor (most browsers behave in a similar fashion), but occasionally certain areas can appear in unexpected positions and layouts can alter (sometimes drastically). Examples of things to look out for are buttons moving or disappearing and causing usability problems, or columns of content moving to the bottom of the site. The good news is that most of the technical aspects happen before the browser stage, so your site should continue to work as expected.
What’s new in IE8?
There are a whole host of great new features in IE8, delivered as enhanced security to keep you protected and improved features to help you do things faster.
Features include:
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Accelerators to speed up routine tasks
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Enhanced tabs with tab groups
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Improved search & address bar
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Automatic crash recovery
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Private Browsing & tools to manage browse history
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SmartScreen filters, Cross Site Scripting Filters & Data Execution Detection to prevent hackers and malware
More details can be found here
Microsoft have also added a backwards compatibility mode that will overcome a lot of the layout issues mentioned above. We have tested this feature and whilst it doesn’t overcome all the problems it does fix a lot of them. The downside is that you are relying on the user to understand what this is and activate it (via a button next to the address bar) every time they visit the site, so your site may appear broken to them first. This is clearly not the best way to convey a professional website.
How many people are using IE8?
Global statistics (courtesy of StatCountershow the IE8 market share is currently about 4% which is pretty low. This is mostly due to the fact that only techies have been downloading it since its release on 20
th March.
This is all about to change as Microsoft included it as part of their windows update during the 3
rd week of April. All IE6 and IE7 users on all Microsoft operating systems will receive a prompt to download the new version. This will be optional, but flagged to the user as ‘high-priority’ in windows XP and 2003 and ‘important’ in Windows Vista and 2008. It is envisaged that this will significantly increase the number of IE8 browsers on the market, especially home users; corporates may well choose to ban the update within their organisations
Stats courtesy of http://gs.statcounter.com
What should I do?
The best thing to do is to download IE8 and see for yourself the impact to your site. Begin with the homepage and move to the main site pages and assess both the functionality and the layout. Don’t forget to make sure all the navigation is working.
Let me know what you think of it!
