I was recently involved in a discussion about whether website designers should still be expected to accommodate Internet Explorer 6 users.

The case against accommodating IE 6 users is invariably backed up with statistics about how few people now use this, admittedly flawed, browser. I’ve heard ‘the statistics defence’ (as I will call it) so often over the years that this latest evocation prompted me to think about why I don’t agree with this approach.

Examples of the ‘statistics defence’:

“We design for 17″ screens because that’s what most people use these days”

“We assume 92dpi resolutions because most people use a PC”

“We use IE 7 as a baseline because very few people use older browsers now.”

Working with non-profits, charities, voluntary and public sector organisations and social enterprises for over 20 years. Jim set up one of the worlds first website accessibility web agencies in the mid 1990s.