save the developpers... (from themselves?)

I just found out about an initiative that I thought was smart: “Save the developers”. Basically, developers who are tired of compatibility issues between IE6 and the other browsers (IE7 or FireFox) have created a small code that detects if the user uses IE6 and proposes to upgrade to 7 or Firefox.

Personally I don’t think it removes the need for developers to make the site work for IE6 because you may suggest to a user to change their browser so they can benefit from the wonders of your site but the reality is that it is your site that has to adapt to the browser of your audience. It is still good to suggest and hopefully get to a point where IE6 users are a minority that could be ignored.

I wanted to see what the suggestion looked like for a user so I went to the website of the initiative. It was so typical of developers that I could not “not blog it”. Don’t get me wrong, I love developers but guys, when you get a good idea think about your audience and how the end product comes across.

This is what I got the first time I tried to connect

The second time, after waiting for quite some time I got one of the ugliest “naked” web page I have seen in years. I am sure it works in 100% of browsers but no one really wants to look at it.