Reply To: Please talk me off the ledge.

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Usually, if I see a client using IE, I’ll talk to them about it when we do the site launch.

I’d highly recommend trying to catch it sooner. I actively engage this issue, and talk about browser support (specifically, what it means, not simply which browsers I will support) before I even give an estimate.

My initial conversation goes something like …

I understand where you’re coming from, but I can really see that conversation backfiring. IE users might have a lower “browser ed level,” but that doesn’t mean they think that anything could possibly be better.

The truth is IE is a bad choice for a browser.

Older versions, yes. 9 is so-so. 10 is very good (not that I like it, but it is very good). A better approach to the conversation would be “you should upgrade.” For those on IE8 -who cannot upgrade- it becomes a discussion about how this is ten years old, and simply cannot do what modern browsers can. In this case, I would actively suggest switching browsers.