HTML5 - Expanded

My HTML 5 tweet needs a bit of expanding - one that 140 characters won’t allow for.

One of the blogs I follow is Dive into HTML5 as it provides some great insight and explores some of the new features that HTML5 provides. The most recent entry (that I read) was called A Form of Madness, detailing the new input types that will be brought to the table. As a (terrible) web designer, these fields interest and excite me - it’d be great to have the browser take care of stuff for me.

However, that is where the problem lies - relying on the browser, especially on the browser supporting the feature. Having it degrade nicely is awesome, but the fact that apparently no browser with a large market share (Firefox or IE) supports any of the HTML5 features (in a production release) means that I just don’t have the energy to bother. As you read the article, you’ll see that there are little boxes showing the different browsers currently available, and their level of support for the HTML5 feature/field - notice that the only ones that support them are Safari 4, Chrome (which version?) or Opera (again, which version?). Combined, let us say that they cover 15% of the market (and I’d say I’m being generous with that) - that means that 85% of the people visiting your website will have a completely different experience. So, as always, the question is: cool technology, or building my site so that the majority all see the same thing.

Age old conundrum, I know.

On a side note, would it be wrong to suggest that the people running Chrome/Opera/Safari are the ones ahead of the curve and usually the people you don’t have to worry about? Ah, the joys of stereotypes! I don’t use any of those browsers - I’m still using Firefox 3.5 quite happily, since I’m ever so plugin happy.