What is the best way to show your users that they use an incompatible browser?

Question

As developer, i stopped making hacks for IE to let the page look like in other browsers (especially for IE7 and IE8). The javascript engine of IE8 is slower than IE7, IE8 shows the page better. I concentrate on being W3C and use HTML5 and CSS3 features, in IE9 it is not so bad but has 16 modes to render pages and can be easily turn on by accident (that is really stupid) and does not exactly behave like the earlier versions of IE.

I complain the user running IE and put some message on the top of the screen with a warning that says that the browser is out-of-date and not using modern standards. The user can click it away or can go to a page to see screenshots rendered in another browser so the user is able to see the difference. But what do you think about that, is this a good way to let users know that the browser they are using is an evil one?

I want that hog IE go away, safe me time and to concentrate to make "A beautiful web" instead of being busy with a Microsoft piece of crap. Markedshare must tear down! What can we effectively do about this without the user to scare that it will leave the page?

I also concentrate on the Google speedtest, reduce the use of images (requests) and use CSS3 style features but is mostly impossible when users still using IE7 and IE8 (and sometimes IE9). I don't want three different stylesheets, i don't want IE-hacks, i don't want comment conditions, i don't want IE specific things!

So what is the best way without scaring users to let them know there are better alternatives?

Answer 1

I like StackOverflow kind of messages, here is why:

1. Get user attention (using the slide in)
2. Doesn't distract the user of the page content (appears on the top only)
3. Easily dismissible (simple close button)
4. Message importance is quickly recognized by the background color of the notification.

SO messages are very thoughtful, would like to see more websites implementing the same method.