Is the scope of Responsive Design worth considering for IE8 as of 2013?

Question

I still see questions here that pertain to making responsive design work for IE8, or god forbid, IE7.

For lack of knowledge of Windows related devices, my immediate thought is that, it would not be worth implementing responsive design for IE8 due to the insignificant amount of mobile devices that would still run IE8 today. And just leave sites as static 1024x768 for this particular browser, as there is little to no reason for responsive design, with the extra painful efforts it requires and the limitation of media query polyfills, if over 95% of the remaining browser share of IE8 is only run on desktops with a safely assumed 1024+ screen width.

If the volume is still relevant, which mobile platform still use IE8 browsers, that would necessitate or justify a responsive design approach for them. Please share useful relevant links.

PS: The context is only using standard mode, excluding using IE in compatibility view or quirk mode.

Answer 1

So after investigation, I am going to answer my own question with a few relevant stats which is what I was looking for:

No known active tablets or mobile phone use IE8 as far I can tell. Event the earliest Windows Phones uses the IE9 engine. So, laptops excluded, IE8 is not used by 'smart' mobile devices.

According to w3counter, statcounter and analytics from 3 client sites, the IE8 browser share in March 2013, based on US sites, is between 5% and 11%. An 8% average.

The number of IE8 users using screen resolutions of 800x600 pixels or less today, as per the 3 different US based sites I studied, is between 0.6% and 1% of the total IE8 user base. Being in line with the trends observed by Jakob Nielsen last year that "small screens for desktop and laptop computers are getting rare" falling to 1% levels: http://www.nngroup.com/articles/computer-screens-getting-bigger/

As of today, that brings an average expectation that the overall IE8 users with a screen size of 800x600 or less, is roughly 0.05%, with a maximum of 0.1% if we include IE7; which is lower than the overall IE6 usage in the US, being at 0.2% according to ie6countdown.com

So the responsive design compatibility requirement below IE9 for the sake of IE7 and IE8 users is only worth should it not require any consequential effort.

If including a media queries polyfill or using Bootstrap makes it works right away, then great. But it's definitely not worth more than a few hours of time dealing with the numerous potential bugs (a Google search for "bootstrap ie8" speaks volume on that), just as it's no longer worth making sites fully IE6 compatible.

As long as the site works in IE8 with a fixed design, which may easier to implement rather than trying to painfully make it responsive for IE8/IE7, it is sufficient as of today.

Answer 2

I would yes, but just barely. I don't know what the numbers are but I'm sure there are still quite a few laptops with small displays out there in the wild that still run Windows XP and or use IE7/8. One simple solution to the problem of getting media queries to work with old IE is css3-mediaqueries.js. It's a polyfill that makes media queries work with all browsers. You can use conditional comments to include it with your site.

Answer 3

Short answer: Depends on your requirements

Long answer: As I read a lot about responsive design and also the two books mentioned in the comments. I'd answer your question like this.. Responsive design (in my understanding) has basically nothing to do with mobile per se. It's actually more like your page "responding" to what ever your user/customer uses to browse your page. I know some of these aspects have very deep roots within the idea behind the internet like the exchange of information.. Blind people also deserve an accessible web and even if that has nothing to do with CSS it still has something to do with responsive web in my opinion.

So the question should be more like - how far should we go with adapting when it comes to responsive websites - and there is probably no real answer. The best way to start with a new responsive (mobile first) webpage - if I recall it correctly - is to build a page that works on your lowest possible resolution with the worst feature set you are likely to support. In your case I'd say IE8 on a 320x240 screen (whoayy.. another question.. is the scope of responsive design worth considering for mobile phones with display resolutions of 320x240 as of 2015 eg). In case of the uber nerd fanblog the lowest feature set may be a terminal with text only support (like the good ol' days ;) - CSS ? whats that? Cross-Shell-Scripting?! Whahoo..).. While a fancy html5 video page may also require not to use IE at all because there is no clip-path and your design totally depends on that.. Also there is the aspect of connection e.g. offline website/different speeds that may play a role.. So responsive design isn't only a frontend thing I'd say but also for the backend. E.g. the uber nerd fanblog http daemon sending plain text w/o any code/markup when there is no valid http header.

Glad you're answered your question already and realized it all depends on your userbase/requirements.

This is not intended as an answer to the ops question more a hint for visitors to come.

@chriz "even though responsive design really aims for mobile devices." - don't think so.. some weeks ago I had to adjust my css just for 4k+ smart tvs.. also if you think about current best practice with mobile-first progressively enhancing.. most of the responsive design kicks in when you're getting more display space and enhancing you page with things that don't work on small mobile screens.. responsive design is a result of having these mobile devices trying to use all that crappy desktop pages with zoom in/out and all these disappointments of not working things..