OKCOOL

Internet Explorer is still broken and Outlook 2007 is using MS Word to render emails, which means that, whilst Outlook 2007 is not technically broken, the web standards that have been steadily seeping into email clients will be. This whole affair was aptedly described as effectively taking email design back 5 years by those respectable folks over at Campaign Monitor.

So I put it to you that Internet Explorer and Outlook 2007 are fundamentally malfunctional and that Microsoft’s lethargic and almost deliberately opposing efforts to contribute to the positive evolution of the Web (specifically through the adoption and support of web standards) has got to be rectified.

But, before you start thinking that this is yet another ‘I hate Microsoft’ rant, I actually think there’s another culprit…

Imagine a piece of software with an error that interferes with the user experience, preventing effective accomplishment of the intended task/s. It is absolutely the software developer’s responsibility to rectify this bug and, not only that, it’s in their best interests to do so. Why? Because if they don’t, the user will complain, the user will condemn, and, ultimately, the user will spend their money on better software. This behavior has meant that the user’s level of satisfaction has been the catalyst for software developers fixing, updating and improving their software. This behavior is, of course, good ol’ supply and demand.

But this has all seemed to break down on the web.

For example, I am a web developer and I will typically, and pain-stakingly, apply fixes to my markup and css to work around IE’s bugs and ensure my websites will work for those using this browser. And what a wonderful gesture that is – I’ve basically fixed the bugs so that Microsoft doesn’t have to! And, if you’re a web developer who aims to support as many browsers as possible, you’re undoubtedly doing this too.

It seems that during the multi-tiered process of producing and delivering web content it has become accepted behavior to pick up the slack and plug the holes left by others when it really shouldn’t be our responsibility to do so. So why are we doing this then? Because we care about the quality of our work and the user’s experience of it so much that we’re busting an absolute gut to ensure that the experience is a good one – to the point of doing other people’s work. And you know what? To all those developers who do so – bloody good on you.

But unfortunately herein lies a significant and, perhaps somewhat overlooked, contributor to the problem – our good intentions have broken the process of supply and demand. Microsoft broke Internet Explorer and we’re keeping it broken.

Maybe you’re thinking I’ve pointed out the blinking obvious…but if I have, and yet still things are as they are, clearly we’re not doing enough about it.

So what are we, as a community with more power than I think we realise, going to do about it?