Jean-Christophe Novelli needs no introduction - if you don't know who he is, then you watch shockingly little TV. Despite his celebrity status he's actually very down to earth; when we met for the first time last year to discuss redesigning his website, it was obvious this process would be an enjoyable one.

The Novelli team already knew the website's major failings; it was almost impossible to keep course information up to date with the clunky administration tools, and the order process was tedious for customers, not allowing more than one attendee to be booked on a course at a time. The challenge was to solve these problems to a budget and a deadline – the Christmas sales period was looming!

First off, we sat down with the people charged with keeping the website up to date. Normally we put aside some time to chat and have them talk us through the process, but in this case the process was literally taking up every minute of their day. So instead we chatted between the long pauses while the system loaded a page or saved a change, and observed the process in real-time.

The administration tools weren't up to the task, every process was convoluted and the application itself groaned under the strain of performing even relatively small tasks.

"It's a nightmare to use if you're on the phone to a customer, you have to keep chatting while you wait for it to do something in case they think you've hung up!" half-joked one member of the team.

After a few sessions we identified what mattered the most, what the team did often and what was time-critical. When we built the new tools we made sure that the vital processes were as simple and streamlined as possible. Many of the changes weren't rocket science, like automatically sending an invoice and voucher to customers when they order, instead of one of the team having to write an email, attach the relevant documents, and send it to the customer manually. That saved a lot of time!

The buying process was a joke. There's no getting around it, it was just awful. From find a course to give me your credit card details, not one step in the elongated process was intuitive or reassuring for the visitor. Worst of all, if you ordered a course for two or more people, you were only asked for one person's details, which meant lots of calls to the Novelli team by confused visitors. I suspect a lot of people just gave up.

More than half the planning time went into creating a great buying experience. We gave customers two ways to find a course; either by using the calendar to choose a date, or by course category where they can select something specific to their interests and tastes. And the order process? Well, we built it with care and finesse, as Jean-Christophe himself would prepare a dish. We kept it brief, but made sure we asked the questions that needed to be asked. You can see the results for yourself.

The new website went live just before the Christmas sales period and the figures so far mean Jean-Christophe will be very busy this year. If you love good food (I think we all know the answer?), we invite you to sample the Novelli Academy website.

In 2001 Microsoft brought us Internet Explorer 6. Little did we know just how much hurt this little application was going to cause us – if we had there's a fair chance we'd have formed a circus troop instead. This year, 2012, sees the end of an era for us as we officially stop supporting for IE6. So why have we stopped?

IE6 had a nasty habit of making itself indispensable, not on merit, but through long standing ties with other applications. Many people got stuck because they relied on older Windows operating systems that only supported up to version 6, or used applications that in turn relied on it. So many got stuck in fact that in 2008, despite the launch of IE7 & 8 (beta 2) an estimated 39% of internet users world-wide still used IE6.

Today I'm happy to report that things are very different, in the UK less than three percent of internet users are browsing with IE6. The official Microsoft figure is actually lower still at 1.4%.

The browser market remains split, with IE8 & 9, Chrome, Firefox and Safari sharing the vast majority of internet users. But despite this split, and especially since Microsoft's renewed commitment to IE with their release of IE9 in 2011, the browser vendors seem committed to compliance, each striving to ensure that their browser supports the web standards put in place by the W3C.

With the passing of IE6 and the commitment by vendors to comply with web standards, we're no longer limited to the features of a decade old browser, nor do we have to spend hours applying dreaded 'ie6 hacks' to our beautiful HTML and CSS. This time will now be far better spent, not on browser compliancy, but on improving the experience for users.

The demise of IE7 – unlike IE6, IE7 never gained the popularity of its elder sibling, however in the UK at least it retains a decreasing but substantial 10% market share. In 12 months time, or perhaps less, it looks set that this too will fall below 5%.

Where did the stats come from – the percentages used within this article are based on data gleaned from our UK client base, except for the official Microsoft figure which is taken from http://www.ie6countdown.com/.

A week ago I went to talk at Worcester University, it's the third year I've been invited and I always look forward to it. The director of creative media there is a wonderful chap named Andy Stevens, I met him whilst playing badminton at a local club and we got chatting about what it is we do.

Andy's background before he became an educator was in the commercial sector, at first in traditional publishing and then heading up the web division for the same company. I never went into higher education myself, I left school at 16 and stayed home for two years. I learnt everything from books and my father (who, luck would have it, is a programmer), I spent two months working in a factory packing cheap rubbish into plastic bags before I was offered a position as a web developer at a local agency (it was a tough choice but I took the web developer role).

As Director of Creative Media Andy oversees a lot of different disciplines, including illustration, photography, animation, infographics, web, and well more than I can recall. Keeping abreast of progress in each of these disciplines is a difficult task, so when possible he visits relevant companies to chat about what's new. He also offers companies the option to go and talk to small groups of students at the university, in the hope that we might provide insight into the commercial world - hence I get to talk.

There are also a number of other initiatives Andy, along with his colleagues, has introduced to try and give the students experience of commercial practices. In addition to talks, students are given projects to work on with real clients and, most refreshingly, real deadlines. Last year for example they designed and developed eco-friendly packaging for a mainstream brewery.

As I mentioned, I have little experience of higher education (and none outside the UK) so perhaps this is not that different to how most universities operate. What little exposure I have had through friends and family has often left me unsure of their present day value to employers. For example, my cousin took a course in Computer Game Design. In his first year one of his lecturers was a student who had graduated the previous year. I can't say if he was an effective lecturer or not, but I would think it difficult for him to prepare students for a commercial environment which he has never experienced.

I think what Worcester University and Andy are doing to try to prepare students is vital for both students and employers and I hope it's more widespread than I believe.