IE 7 and Web Design – The shot heard around the world
I downloaded the new Microsoft Internet Exlorer 7.0 Beta 2 Preview. And overall I gotta say I like it. I like the tabs, I am getting used to where they moved the home page icon to, I like the new RSS ding, etc.
All this, despite the fact that when I first installed it & restarted my computer – they very first time I ran IE 7.0 – it froze up my computer. So I had to reboot. However, since then I haven’t had any problems whatsoever.
EXCEPT….
There are a few web page display issues. And this is going to affect ALL of us. Even just casual web surfers. Why? Because the old Internet Explorer 6 displayed things a little differently, it fudged to make things look ok. Enough to now make designers have to go back and change their layout to accomodate the new IE 7 interpretation (which is technically more accurate – which is really good in the long run). Gotta start somewhere with standardization I guess.
So here’s an example of what I suspect will be a UNIVERSAL experience in the months to come:
After designing a layout for a paying client yesterday, I used the new IE 7 and Firefox to ‘test’ the page, as all competent designers are supposed to do. Obviously, it’s a good idea to see what it looks like before uploading, so I previewed it in those browsers.
Wow – it looked GREAT!! Pure table-less CSS 3 column layout. Looked very smooth and professional. Took me a few hours to get it at that point. So, proudly, I sent it to the company late last night. I felt good. Mission accomplished.
But as any new designer will figure out, things don’t always go as planned. Early this morning, on a whim, I tested it on my other computer, an old eMachines with 800 x 600 browser size still using Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 and guess what?? Yup, it didn’t look right. In fact it looked bad. And guess what browser the company I sent it to is using? Yup, IE 6.
So I scrambled to make changes. How long did it take to me to change the CSS code? 2 minutes. It was easy. I had a margin issue and IE 6 didn’t like my transparent .png file, which rendered ok in FireFox and Internet Explorer 7.0.
The real question is… Did I save it in time? Has the client even looked at the page yet?? I don’t know. But I can only image what the cost of a first impression is. So I don’t know if I ‘saved’ it just in time or not. We’ll find out. I do know that won’t happen again next time 
I’m confident this will be the first of many stories to be heard ‘world wide’ about the switch over that’s coming soon. I do think it’s for the better in the long run. Things should look the same in all the different browsers ideally. But for the time being, just imagine all the man hours and the expense that it’s going to take to make the pages have universal appeal.
Just little things, like my GoDaddy account not displaying the drop down menus I am used to. OR text being mis-aligned and overlapping onto other text. You’ll start seeing it, if you haven’t already.
For now I gotta go check out all my other sites!! Nothing like checking in 6 different browsers to see what the effect is going to look like to the rest of the world…oh well, just another step in the design process.
It’s a great metaphor though, since my map of the world is not the territory, it’s not even the same as other people’s map of the world. Not yet at least.