Shepherd Interactive

We just celebrated the launch of the new Oregon Re-Bath website this last week. I’m proud of the work we did on it. This site marks the third site I’ve developed at Shepherd Interactive using HTML5 markup. HTML5 is the next version of HTML which standardizes the language of Web 2.0. Ben Brown (a designer here at Shepherd Interactive) did a great job on the graphic design, incorporating the Re-Bath franchise’s graphic elements into a unique design while at the same time allowing for the latest Web technologies to be employed. I worked to make the interface more engaging by adding in some animation. The navigation menus, home page elements, and the special offers sign-up are all animated using declarative CSS Transitions, which are supported natively by Safari 3 and Google Chrome. Firefox and Internet Explorer, however, do not yet support CSS Transitions. Because of this, I worked on implementing a subset of the specification so that the site could maintain a clean separation between HTML content, CSS presentation, and JavaScript behavior—this CSS Transitions via jQuery Animation source code is available under an open source license. It was a stretching experience to say the least, having to delve into CSS DOM internals and XBL/HTC bindings, but it’s rewarding to see the great results.

Aside from HTML5 and CSS Transitions, one of the other things I’m proud of regarding the Oregon Re-Bath site is that Internet Explorer 6 did not have to be supported. This might sound like a strange thing to be excited about, but IE6 is a legacy browser—more than seven years old. Browser vendors, including Microsoft, have advanced the state of the art far beyond the capabilities of IE6, and so this browser has been holding the Web back. Thankfully more and more people are upgrading from IE6 to modern browsers (such as IE7, Firefox, Safari, Chrome), and that means fewer and fewer projects today require support for this legacy browser. So many people have been upgrading that many developers are able to make the new year’s resolution, “I won’t support IE6 in 2009″ or are even just saying “no” to IE6. Companies like Apple, 37signals, and even Google are starting to make similar resolutions. Supporting IE6 takes a great deal of additional effort because of how poorly it supports Internet standards. When developing a site to support IE6, we must almost code everything twice: once in a way that IE6 understands, and another in a way other browsers understand. This not only means additional development time is required, but it also means maintenance is complicated because the two versions have to be kept synchronized.

By not having to support IE6 we are able to save development time which translates into a cost savings for our clients like Oregon Re-Bath, CCAA, and Continū. Additionally, as more and more websites stop supporting IE6 and include notices encouraging its users to upgrade, the Web is able to advance. These are reasons why I’m proud that Shepherd Interactive no longer includes IE6 support in our basic website development services so that clients have to specifically request it. In doing so, we simultaneously maximize the client’s budget and help the Web progress.