What Browser are you using and how old is it? Do you know? Have you been prompted to update your browser lately, but haven't gotten around to it? Well, you're not alone.
What's making the web community grumble loudly today is old browser versions, released over the years but still being used to view modern websites.
In the early years of the internet, before regulations began to standardise the industry, browsers boomed and busted and coding conventions differed greatly between each browser. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) held their first conference in 1994 and has been the deciding force when aligning the primary browser makers to a standard, but these older browsers are still out there. In order to have your website usable on each older browser developers have to code up another version of your site with code specific to each old version. IE is the most common older browser still in use and developers are reluctantly coding for IE 6, 7, 8, and 9. There are up to 3 screen sizes within each of these older IEs that require specific versions of your code.
Is your new site going to work on ALL browsers?
It's common for website providers to use precoded templates to shave down time and costs to the consumer. The templates are purchased error free and ready for a specified variety of browsers, therefore it's common for teams to assume the template works on all browsers when the site is complete and this may not be the case. Testing on all browsers is either not done or insufficient to reveal problems and sites are launched regardless.
What to expect when you bring it up with your web team
The topic of different browsers needs to be discussed with your Web Team, you may find that it isn't included in the price quoted. A Web team that doesn't care to meet web standards is likely to say that nobody uses these older browsers anymore, so you don't have to worry about it. If you have an international audience for your website you MUST employ a team who can provide for older browsers, China's use of IE6 is still 3%. For local websites, you may think we don't have to worry, but be aware that updating software on computers in public spaces is restricted to an administrator, just one very busy person who may think updating a browser is not a priority. This means computers in government departments, education environments, hospitals, libraries etc systematically smash websites to pieces because they are running IE 7 or 8, for instance.
But it's not just older browsers causing smashes
If a Web Team isn't worried about older browsers, it's highly likely they aren't testing the finished site on ANY browser. I was surprised to see smashed sites last week when I reviewed the top ranking web providers in my area, I opened their sites in the new Google Chrome. New Google Chrome is a beautiful browser and reads coding errors correctly. If the code is wrong the result shown by Chrome could render the site useless. The award winning website company hadn't tested their site in the latest version of Chrome. Don't think that the issues were simply cosmetic and therefore could be shrugged off, these errors caused the primary navigation buttons to be useless, users were unable to move beyond the first page to access contact information and important text boxes floated half way off the page. Can you afford not to cater for Google Chrome users? Chrome now represent 30% of Australian Browsers. A customer landing on a site like this will not understand what's going on and will bounce straight back to the search results for a site that does work. Users won't open an alternative browser to view the site again or download a browser update and reload the site. Would you?
How many browsers should be tested for and how far back?
Well, the answer to that is easy. If you have an international audience and you want your site available everywhere, your site should be tested on all browsers including IE 6. If you have a specific country that you're marketing into you can check their browser preferences at statCounter. Set the Stat: Browser field to "Browser Version" and select the target country.
Coding for IE 6 is time consuming, you will need to consider the Return On Investment achieved if you decide to go for it. If you have a local website, IE 6 isn't necessary. Snap2 SEO tests and codes for browsers back to IE 7 for local sites, unless we get a specific request.
The point is Testing
The practice of testing is a web industry standard. Validation is part of the Testing process and indicates all known errors that will cause browsers to balk at your website. If a company isn't testing thoroughly, it's unlikely they're concerned about Validation either.
After I tested the top ranking Website providers in Chrome, I ran their sites through a little piece of validation software. Validation not only checks for coding errors that cause browser issues, it picks up spelling mistakes and missing links too. SEO is interested in eliminating errors in websites because they effect rank. The result of my validation tests on the local web providers was: Best at 44 errors, Worst at over 200 errors. The consumer will pick up the costs of poor standards through loss of customers or when the SEO team needs to recode to eliminate the errors. Google prefers error free sites and is moving towards testing sites for usability issues.
How do you know if your site validates?
As a website consumer, how will you know your site validates or doesn't?
Spelling mistakes are part and parcel of working with text and eliminating them is a team effort that goes on until the site is released for public viewing, but spelling mistakes are one of the first indicators of insufficient testing if they persist on finished sites. If I saw spelling mistakes on a site released to the public, I'd start looking for broken links. A site with spelling mistakes and missing links hasn't passed validation.
How do you really know what browsers customers are using?
The browser to country statistics are available on the net, until your site is launched and Analytics show beyond a shadow of a doubt what the majority of your customers are using. Analytics tracks your visitors when they are on your site. From Analytics we can tell which country, which browser and what device. Until you can get your Analytics set up on your site, what you can do as a website consumer is look for signs of Standards when shopping for your website team. Choose to work with companies who advertise their products work on all browsers and meet W3C Standards. Check for spelling mistakes and missing links on their sites. At very least open their sites in Safari, Firefox and Chrome and at work on your office computer before you sign up to them. You may be surprised at what you see.
No comments:
Post a Comment