On the 26th May this year the EU Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive comes into play. If you're not sure how it will affect your website's interaction with visitors you can join the rest of the world, including those who put forward the directive.

What is this directive?

The aim of the directive is to help protect the privacy of online users by forcing websites to be transparent about how they store and use visitor information, as well as making any such storage opt-in as opposed to opt-out.

Cookies are a very common mechanism websites use to store visitor information. As the law stands (pre the 26th May) websites only need to inform users how they use cookies and how visitors can opt out, but moving forward they will be forced to ask a user to opt in before they can use cookies to store their information.

Does it apply to me?

If you run a website that targets visitors in EU member states then the directive potentially applies to you, even if your website is hosted elsewhere in the world.

If your website has web analytics, supports for members signing in, or has any form of e-commerce then it almost certainly does. In all likelihood your website uses cookies; if you're a Getme client it does.

What happens if I don't comply?

The maximum penalty for non-compliance is £500,000. However, monetary fines are aimed at websites that deliberately contravene the directive, causing substantial damage or distress. In the majority of cases it is likely website operators will receive an information/enforcement notice providing a list of actions to take in order to comply.

I'm using cookies, so I'd better comply?

You'd think so, but it turns out some cookies are exempt - so called 'essential' cookies. These are cookies used to support for functionality such as a shopping basket that wouldn't work without cookies.

Are web analytics 'essential'?

This is where things get murky. If you've used Google Analytics before you'll know that it allows you to track visitor behaviour on your website, which it does using cookies. Most websites use some form of web analytics to allow them to monitor visitor trends so that they can evolve and improve the user experience. It's not entirely clear from the EU directive whether or not you need to obtain permission from visitors to gather such demographic information. Furthermore, the UK Government Digital Service (GDS) department's position appears to be that web analytics are 'essential' and have stated that:

"Provided clear information is given about their activities we are unlikely to prioritise first-party cookies used only for analytical purposes in any consideration of regulatory action."

Do I need to do anything?

Unless the UK government changes their viewpoint it looks likely that using cookies for web analytics is safe for now, for websites targeting UK visitors. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do anything. The first step is to audit your website; determine if any of the cookies it stores for visitors are non-essential. If the only non-essential cookies you're using are for web analytics then at this point it would be a good idea to review your website's privacy policy and make sure it;

• clearly explains how you use visitor information stored in cookies,
• provides an easy opt-out facility.

For Getme clients, if you'd like some assistance in getting your privacy policy updated, or if you simply want to talk through the directive and its implications in more detail, please get in touch.

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/.