Boy, this is really getting off topic. Let me sum up my position at the start, then address your points.
- As a web designer, you want a successful site. Supporting different browsers cost resources (time and effort) but gives you a larger potential user base. The more users you have, the more successful the site. Thus I usually go for a user centered design. If you don't have the resources to support a browser, then don't support it, as long as you realize and accept the consequences. For this same reason, software developers don't support Win98 or older versions of OS X (even 10.4 is considered an "old version" by some).
- The point of standards is interoperability, i.e. developers can write code that will work across different systems. If you don't support a browser, you're ignoring the point of standards. At the same time, standards are meaningless the more they are deviated from.
One extra click is jumping through hoops? I think not.
As a designer, you can generally find a way to make designs that work or degrade gracefully on browsers in use without requiring action on the part of the user. If the link is easily visible and doesn't get in the way, it's a large, easy to jump through hoop, but it's still a hoop. A well designed interface is transparent; from the user's perspective, it just seems to work.
Anyways, I don't really agree with your premises about the rights of the end user. If people are going to buy something, they have some responsibility to themselves to make sure it meets standards, i.e does it work. If they are expecting to be given smething for free, then they shouldn't mind going to a little effort to choose a product that meets standards.
In my view, it's not a matter of right so much as a matter of being pragmatic. The reality is that many users won't have the technical savvy to compare browsers. I know many people that don't even know what a browser is, nor do they care enough to take the time (there are, after all, more important things than what web browser you use). To them, it's all "the Internet". While
I believe that it would be better for them to be informed, it's their choice to remain ignorant (no matter how much I try to educate them), and (as web developers), we have to live with it. Sad but true, the end user will blame the site, not the browser, when a site doesn't work for them. Even many Firefox users aren't actually aware of the specific issues, they just hear by word of mouth that IE "doesn't support standards" and "Firefox is better" (which is true overall, depending on the browser versions, though there have been instances where IE followed the standard and other browsers didn't). As a result, you get religious wars.
What a bunch of arrogant freaking pricks Microsoft are, intentionally making a browser that doesn't work with Yahoo Games.
Except that it was Yahoo's move.
What was yahoo's move?
Choosing not to support IE8. MS didn't make a browser that didn't work with Yahoo Games, Yahoo made a site that didn't work with IE. It wasn't a goal of MS to make IE not work on given sites, it was a side effect of trying to improve IE. They just didn't improve IE enough. That's not to say MS makes supporting IE easy. Maybe IE8's security model, while needed, was getting in the way. It could be because presence (i.e. object detection) is easy to test for, but behavior isn't. Whatever the reason, Yahoo chose not to test their site on IE and find workarounds for IE's behavior.
Don't you think this so-called reponsibility not to aggravate the end user extends to Microsoft also?
Only to some extent, which suggests there's a better rubric than "don't aggravate end users". MS should make IE standards compliant, and IE's behavior should be well documented and dependable, but they shouldn't make it bug-for-bug compatible. If they did, we'd never be rid of the erroneous behavior. It's one of the more difficult problems of maintenance and re-development: how to change behavior/add features while supporting legacy code/features/behavior? Eventually, you have to deprecate and then discard the old way.
MS did include the "compatibility view" feature so IE8 will behave like an earlier version of IE if the user so choses. Because it's a system-oriented task (rather than a user-goal oriented task; not certain if those are the best terms) and requires knowledge the user doesn't necessarily have, it's not a perfect solution, but is better than many alternatives.
We could go on. This is not about shoulds. And if anyone should be shouldering responsibility, than I don't think it is site developers, it is software developers.
Responsibilities aside, both have to deal with it, in different ways.
Anyways, it kind of depends on your perspective.
Very true; perspective and priorities. I tend to take a pragmatic view when it comes to the user experience, but stick to principles when it comes to design. In each I'm heavily influenced in my math training and the book "The Design of Everyday Things", which every designer should read.
And I hate supporting IE.
.... Or maybe they'll learn from their mistakes.