I am a designer whose main marketing strategy is multi browser compatibility. I assure my clients that the site will work even in IE6 (!).
Of late i have been pondering over the question of moving to HTML 5. The reason behind my apprehension is that IE6 is still a major player in terms of market share and i don't want to lose it.
Is there any way of moving to HTML 5 and still promise multi browser compatibility?
Thank you.
Yes, by taking baby steps.
To start with, you can switch to the HTML5 doctype: <!DOCTYPE html>. This switches just about every browser out there into "standards" mode, the same as an HTML 4 strict doctype.
Then there's the new elements. Internet Explorer can't natively style them, but a handy little bit of javascript fixes that up: http://code.google.com/p/html5shiv/
If you or your tools aren't ready for that (e.g. some CMSs strip out HTML tags they don't understand), then in the interim you could use classes, e.g. instead of <article>, use <div class="article">.
As for the new form controls, they're backwards compatible too. So <input type="email"> will work exactly the same way as <input type="text"> in browsers that don't support it. If necessary you can use javascript to fill in the gaps. See http://diveintohtml5.ep.io/forms.html for more on that.
As for <video> and <audio>, you can fall back to <object> for older browsers - e.g. http://camendesign.com/code/video_for_everybody. Meanwhile <canvas> can be emulated in javascript, e.g. http://code.google.com/p/explorercanvas/.
"To HTML5" is a fairly broad statement. Even if you have the new HTML5 doctype set (the simple <!DOCTYPE html>) you don't have to go all out and use every aspect of HTML5, only what is appropriate to your project.
If you are keen to get on board with HTML5, I recommend reading "How to use HTML5 in your client work right now" for examples of how you can use certain aspects of HTML5 with few (if any) drawbacks.
Disclaimer: I am one of the curators of HTML5 Doctor.
From there it boils down to whether or not your project will benefit from the features of HTML5 and if you can afford to implement these features. For example, if all of your IE users also have JavaScript enabled you can use html5shiv to get IE to recognise the new elements, enabling you to use them and style them.
As for the new JS APIs and CSS properties that people often group with the term "HTML5", unless your site absolutely requires that you use the technology (perhaps something like geolocation), then it could simply be a matter of progressive enhancement. If webkit/firefox users get rounded corners from CSS3 and IE users don't, is that really such a big deal?
As a rule of thumb I would not develop a site purely in HTML 5 but would consider using it for certain, richer, parts of the site. Remember that it is still not recommended by W3C and IE barely supports it at all.
This blog has a good discussion on it: http://blogs.forrester.com/ronald_rogowski/10-05-10-what_should_customer_experience_professionals_do_about_html5
yes there are several ways.
but if you DONT need html5 elements like video tags, or html5 api's like browser databases, stay at XHTML,because it is still not recommended by W3C. There you can use simple fallbacks for ie6.
do you need html5 elements and apis?
As a last resort you could use Chrome Frame: http://code.google.com/chrome/chromeframe/
As for "a major player in terms of market share", that really depends on your audience. Even Microsoft is marketing its new IE versions rather aggressively. And I don't think there's shame in charging your IE 6 users an extra plugin installation fee. After all, their browser is 10 years old, which is about 100 Internet years, isn't it?
