We have recently been asked - and not for the first time - if a new website should support Internet Explorer 6.
Usage of IE6 has been falling sharply in the last year or so. However, looking at different statistics it's clear that IE6 has not yet disappeared from the scene.
Statistics always need to be examined with a critical eye, but if we look at the United Kingdom in particular, figures are always lower than 3%. According to "The Internet Explorer 6 Countdown", 2.4% of Internet users in the UK were still on IE6 in August 2011. A different source - Stat Counter - shows even smaller figures, with IE6 down to less than 2% in the same period.
Taking a closer look at our own stats, we found that around 4% of visitors to the RNIB website used IE6 in the last month. For the record, we even had 4 IE5 users!
The trend in the last 6 months shows that the number of IE6 users is in constant albeit slow decline, from 7.4% in January down to 4.08% in August. It looks like our visitors are not against the change, but they seem to be slower than the average UK internet user to upgrade to a later version of IE.
In general, people with disabilities are more likely to stick to IE6, usually because they fear that upgrading the browser would break compatibility with their current assistive technology. And don't forget that if you also need to upgrade your assistive technology, then that could be an expensive and risky adventure.
To most people, and in particular those with a disability, the web has opened up a huge new frontier, allowing us to communicate, keep up to date, shop, manage our money and do many other things. We all like to stick to our comfort zone, and the principle "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" is very much true for people for whom losing the ability to access the web would mean falling back into real isolation.
Stability also seems to be important for a number of organisations, such as financial institutions or large public sector departments, that continue to use IE6 as their corporate option due to upgrade costs, security concerns (ironically) and compatibility with internal web applications.
But what are the most important reasons why some people with disabilities still prefer IE6, and what are the solutions?
In my opinion, there are two main issues, both with workarounds:
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Font resizing vs full zoom
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Keyboard access
Font resizing vs full zoom
You'd think that people needing larger text would be attracted to the facility available in Internet Explorer versions after 6, to zoom text rather than just change the text size. The text resizing is limited to Largest whereas Zoom offers a much more powerful magnification.
However the Zoom facility produces horizontal as well as vertical zooming, and users would need to use the horizontal scroll bar to view the whole page.
But IE8 and 9 retained the choice to only resize the text (from smallest to largest) and many other browsers offer a 'Zoom text only' option.
Another issue with Zoom might be that if users need large text, they will have real difficulty finding the tiny controls at the bottom of the browser.
But I believe that users constantly in need of something bigger than Largest, probably already use some other form of assistive technology - full screen magnification for example.
Keyboard access
In Internet Explorer 6, the browser interface doesn't have any tab stops. If the cursor focus is on the Address bar, two presses of the tab key will take keyboard only users onto the first link in the page. Later versions have made several parts of the interface keyboard navigable, which sounds like a great idea until you find that with the default configuration, tabbing from the Address bar to reach the first page link has increased to eight presses of the tab key.
But there is a solution: on Internet Explorer 8 and 9, the F6 function key moves the focus from the Address bar to the Favorites button, and then to the page. A similar behaviour exists on other browsers. Perhaps not all users know that this shortcut exists, but rather than stop us from moving away from IE6, this function could be documented on the website accessibility help page.
Conclusions
So what is the answer to "is dropping IE6 an accessibility issue?"
Much as I would like to simply say "yes, ditch IE6", the answer is a bit more complicated. Dropping support for IE6 might affect a small minority but probably largely consisting of people with disabilities.
However, even within our own team we have different opinions. I'm more inclined than others towards saying that IE6 support can be safely dropped by web developers and designers. I think that the trend of the statistics, the limited number of scenarios at risk and the available alternatives, make a good case for finally moving on from Internet Explorer 6. One thing we do all agree on, though, is that designers and developers should no longer have the burden of trying to make web sites look identical in new browsers and browsers this old, as long as web sites still function and text is readable at different user selected sizes.
My personal suggestion to users that feel concerned about upgrading Internet Explorer is to try an alternative browser for a short time. There are many others available, they are usually free and can be installed without affecting the existing configuration. Just make sure to uncheck the "make this my default browser" option when installing the new browser. In this way you'll be able to make an informed decision. For example you could try Firefox, Opera, Chrome or Safari.
On the screen reader side, if you're concerned that yours may not support a different browser, you might want to try the free NVDA screen reader, or if you are an Apple user, then Voiceover is embedded and ready to use.
Browsers and screen readers don't always play nicely together. For example, the current version of Opera doesn't work with any screen reader, Safari works with VoiceOver on an Apple machine, and Firefox will work with Jaws and NVDA. So it's worth doing a bit of research before you decide on a specific browser/screen reader combo.