An HTML5 document ( <!doctype html> ) works fine in IE 6 (to the extent that it puts IE 6 in standard mode ).
In addition, I think that almost nothing new in HTML5 or CSS3 (except @font-face ) is not supported in IE 6, so you need to at least decide how good the experience in IE 6 is. Reasonably, however, the new features generally have no negative effect in IE 6.
For example, new <input> types, such as <input type="date"> , will display exactly the same as <input type="text"> in IE 6. Thus, you will need to decide if simple input is enough text for IE 6 users or you need to enable date picker using JavaScript.
This is almost a question with all the HTML5 / CSS3 features: can users of older browsers do without them, or do you need to add an alternative implementation?
The main exception is new tags in HTML5 - Internet Explorer 6 will not allow you to create style tags that it does not know about, unless you create an instance of this tag using JavaScript . (The same goes for the HTML 4 <abbr> , because IE is unaware of this for some reason.)
Paul D. Waite
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