The March of Progress

It’s a trite truism that the digital world moves fast. Everyone here at the ANDDi mill is working in a job that didn’t really exist twenty years ago. Every day we’re learning about new technologies that can enhance our output, allowing us to create ever more intelligent, engaging work for our clients. But unfortunately, not everyone moves at the same pace.

Some of our clients sell into markets where internet use is, shall we say, patchy. We’re not talking about the third world here. We’re talking about large corporations. Unfortunately many large companies still keep a strangehold on users access to the web, through maintaining old versions of web browsers and imposing draconian restrictions on internet access.

The result? A poor experience for our clients’ customers. We take accessibility requirements into account, and (under duress) we can design sites that degrade reasonably right back to Internet Explorer 6 (still used by 6% of web users I think – all in large corporates I’m willing to bet), but when companies lock down images, scripts, videos, Flash, plugins, etc etc, it becomes pretty tricky to create an engaging experience.

My point? We need a change of attitude from large corporations. Shutting their staff off from the finest aspects of the digital world does nobody any favours. It leaves them blind to big developments and social shifts, and it limits their access to powerful tools and information. The potential benefits of more open access need to be more carefully weighed against the security threats this incurs. And for the sake of their own safety and sanity, they really need to get people off IE 6…