“The fonts are too big.”
“I can’t get the vote button to work.”
“The pictures are covering the text.”
Our instinctual response to these common customer service complaints is: “What browser are you using?”
If the response is Microsoft Internet Explorer, we have our answer.
Here’s the deal:
For a while now, Microsoft has not fully complied with W3C standards on how the Internet Explorer web browser renders pages. Our developers basically have to choose between creating a site specifically for IE, or creating a site that can be accessed on all other browsers (Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera, etc.) that can better support a site with our bevy of features and functions.
This isn’t just a problem with Quirky; it’s a problem faced by developers worldwide! This article sums up many of the issues.
But there’s good news! Rumor has it that the new IE9, to be released in 2011, will be much more developer-friendly. In the meantime, we recommend that IE users download the Google Chrome Frame, a plug-in that brings Google Chrome’s open web technologies and speedy JavaScript engine to Internet Explorer.
Download it here: http://code.google.com/chrome/chromeframe/.
