It’s taken a few years now for the battlefields of the browser wars to begin to be levelled. Web designers have been on the front lines, trying to doge the shells of legacy browsers exploding all over their carefully crafted pages. It has become commonplace for a designer to have to be proficient in a arsenal of hacks and tricks so that even the design of a simple page is consistent across all of the available browsers.

Certainly with the advent of Internet Explorer 7 some great strides were taken towards a more compatible infrastructure in terms of how designs are rendered in different browsers. Internet Explorer 8 is now up there with Firefox, Safari and Opera (and to some extent Chrome) in applying web standards to the display of HTML and CSS.

This is all well and good, but there’s still a propensity to keep an eye on the market share of Internet Explorer and try and design accordingly. Internet Explorer 8 is gaining ground, certainly, but there are still a few skirmishes out there and a good designer still needs to at least think one version back when it comes to designing for IE.

But in this brave new world that has such browsers in it, is it not necessary to now ask the question: should we design for legacy browsers? Is it not a responsibility that we as designers should take on ourselves to move the industry forward by building sites that still work on a legacy browser, but are optimal on the more modern versions?

This does sound a bit like laziness dressed up as social conscience. It’s always been a matter of pride with a web designer that a design is compatible with almost any browser in the world. Anybody with access to a computer and a modem, no matter what system they’re using, should be able to get the same amount of value out of a site as the person with the most up-to-date systems.

There is also a basic level of accessibility here that should not be discounted. Just as we make sure that our site is viewable by someone with visual difficulty, we should also make sure that technological difficulty is taken into account.

It’s hard work, but it’s useful and necessary work.

But, on the other hand.

The problem with continually referring back to previous browsers is that it leads to stagnation. CSS3 techniques, for example, have been around for quite some time and are still not regarded as something that can be widely used. It doesn’t make sense for such a fast moving industry to be mired in past systems. Perhaps it’s time for the actual pages that get displayed on the internet to be the catalyst for change. It’s not difficult to download and install a new browser version - or in fact to switch to another browser.  With the browser detection techniques developed out of necessity during the browser wars, we should be showing notices, providing links and educating the average internet user about the options available

The global design theory also doesn’t really stand up. It’s like looking for the universal equation: there are too many factors to take into account. At last count there are more than 30 different types of browsers being used on the internet. It’s not possible to design for all of these – that way madness lies. Five years ago we were having this discussion about IE 5.5 – does anybody today actually still try and design for 5.5? What, then, is the difference between not designing for 5.5 and killing yourself to make sure that IE6 displays your pages correctly? Or IE7? Or Safari 1.0? Or Netscape 2?

There is also an argument that major corporations have written internal systems that only operate on specific types of browsers and cannot justify the expense of upgrading their programming so that their workforce can access Facebook. This, too, doesn’t stand up really. Simply provide an alternative browser to use. There is no reason that somebody cannot use IE6 to access that crazy internal accounting system and Firefox 3.5 to browse the web.

It’s a bold move, however, to become so forward-focussed, especially when developing for clients who will expect to have as much coverage as possible. This could be solved with a little education and communication. It should be made clear to a new client what the options are and how you as a company approach this issue. Should the client request that their site be compatible with legacy browsers then this can be taken into account when drawing up the project quotes and specifications.

It is time for designers and developers to take a more active role in taking the industry forward by educating their audience about browser compatibility and the options available. This can only be beneficial to the global user population who will have better internet experiences; for the clients who will have a lower bill at the end of the day; and for the designer in the trenches who can finally say that the war is over.