I know, I know. All of us test for Internet Explorer (and previous versions) for every WordPress product, theme, and plugin that we release, right?
I mean, no developer in their right mind would ever publicly release a product without testing for IE…?!?
*Note rampant sarcasm*
Microsoft is trying to get back on the good side of the fences with developers by providing them new tools to help them test for IE compatibility, like their new Modern.ie website and compatibility tool.
Scan a website quickly and it’ll tell you if you’ve got some *ahem* work to do to make sure that it’s up to snuff. Whoops, it found that we might have a small issue here on our own child theme:
Whoops. We’ll get to that… sometime…
You can see a little marketing diddy here too:
But in seriousness – do you comprehensively test for IE compatibility on all your WordPress products or have you given up on IE and that browser altogether?
Answer via our fun little poll and give us your thoughts in the comments.
I always test IE, but I’ll admit to doing so only _after_ I get everything running elsewhere. Usually it’s a tweak here or there and IE will play nice. Also, a liberal use of http://caniuse.com while developing things helps reduce confusion at the end of the process.
I only ever test on IE if required to do so by a client or if it seems important given their target audience. I try to remember what does and doesn’t work in IE but I only test on modern browsers. I might start testing for IE when 10 eventually comes out….
FYI IE 10 came out with Windows 8 back in 2012.
I only test on the latest-and-greatest version of IE at the time. IE users still represent too great a chunk of web users to ignore totally.
In my company we do test in IE, but its very confusing, as stuffs running fine in IE 9, might break completely on IE 8.
That’s a good point, actually. I work for a public institution in the USA and we have people that still use IE all the way back to IE 7 because of other software that requires that specific browser. We end up having to make things function as best as we can in that version through the current one.
I’m so done with IE, if it works: great; if not: tough luck, get a real browser
I note your sarcasm and must admit it makes me sad. No matter how much people choose to hate IE, the reality is we as web developers have no control over how people choose to access the sites we build. And though many developers see it as their job to force users to switch to a different browser, it is not. Our job is to make web experiences that are accessible to whomever decides to access them with whatever means they choose.
Saying “update to a real browser” and the likes is ill informed and ignores the real face of the internet surfing public. Many web users are not capable of installing a new browser, either because of their lack of understanding of their own OS or because of restrictions to their user privileges or other factors. For example, many corporations (banks, wholesalers, airline booking agents) use database systems built a long time ago specifically to run in IE6. These applications are now so embedded that changing them would be an insurmountable expense. As a result the companies are forced to keep running old software and its users are left with an old web experience. Microsoft has worked for years to try to alleviate this problem, but it comes down to a question of financing. Just imagine what it would cost to update the entire Asian banking sector or the international flight booking system and you’ll see what I mean.
You don’t have to test your theme against IE6 and 7, but not testing it against IE8 is doing a disservice to the people who are likely to visit the theme. Making a theme work in IE8 is not hard and requires only that you write your code properly. Making it work for IE9 and IE10 is no different from making it work for Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. Currently there are more compliance issues with Safari than with IE9 or 10.
And before you ask, no I do not work for Microsoft nor do I use IE for anything other than testing purposes. I do however test everything I do against IE8 and above because I know there are people out there on the web who would be disappointed if what I build doesn’t work on their computers.
Didn’t mean to offend, really. Sorry you took it that way!
Of course I test the sites I build. It’s getting to the point where IE6 isn’t relevant browser any more, and IE7-8 are nowhere near as nasty, but it’s still required.
Using good theme framework saves me lot of trouble. So do browser testing services such as BrowserStack that was also mentioned on Microsoft’s site. Installing IE versions is Somebody Else’s Problem – me gusta!
As the quality lead for 8BIT, I can say that we test IE. We test versions that WordPress itself supports.
Whether we like it or not, IE is not going anywhere. While a pain most of the time, we suck it up and do it because we want the best user experience possible regardless.