Yeah. But, changing a 24t for a 26t is a tiny difference you might not even notice. But, this is a very simple low cost option to get a lower gear. Anything else is much more effort and pricey.

Regarding shortening the chain, don't. I am running a 52/42/24 front and 11/32 eight speed rear. If I am using the 24t front, my derailleur cage won't take up all slack if I am on the 11 or 12 rear sprockets, but that is pretty far cross chained so I do not use those gears anyway. You want to make sure you have enough chain so if you accidently went into your largest front and rear gears, you would not bind anything up.

Option B. If you really are serious about this, you can try a mountain tamer. It is a spider that goes on instead of the 26t chainring, that spider holds a smaller chainring that would normally be installed on a Suntour rear cluster. You can go as low as 18t on the front with that.
http://abundantadventures.com/mt_triple.html

I tried one with a 20t and did not like it so I went back to a conventional 24t front chainring. I found that the 20t had me going so slow that I had trouble staying upright. Photo is with a 20t front with the mountain tamer.



One problem I had is that the instructions say to hacksaw off some of the crankset bosses to shorten them. I did not do that. It is a bit hard to see in the photo, but I cut a piece of sheet metal and put that on each arm of the spider with a little ramp to force the chain over and onto the sprocket. Otherwise the chain lands on the spider and not on the sprocket when I downshift.

Avid also made an adapter but I do not recall what the exact name of it was.

If you try the Avid or the Mountain Tamer, you likely would need a friction front shifter.