| Web browser compatibility testing sounds rather | | | | right price/feature combination I was happy with. |
| technical and confusing - something you ought to let | | | | Happily, though, there I found a free service you can |
| your web developer deal with. The problem is that if | | | | use. Browser Shots will show you what your site looks |
| your website is not compatible with the plethora of | | | | like in more than 80 different computer/browser |
| browsers available, it will affect your business | | | | combinations without you having to pay a cent. But the |
| reputation. Indeed, before you know it there could be | | | | problem is because it is free, many people are using it |
| Tweets about you, your website could be discussed in | | | | and it can be very slow at times. You end up being in |
| Facebook and who knows how many blog posts | | | | a queue, having to wait half an hour or more to find |
| slagging you off their might be. | | | | out what your website looks like in other browsers. |
| Yesterday, my friend Andrew Palmer from Marketing | | | | And then it might not work because it could have |
| Collateral sent me an email pointing out there was a | | | | timed-out. |
| problem with my website when it was viewed in | | | | After much testing and price comparisons, I settled |
| Internet Explorer 7. Some recent changes to my home | | | | upon a downloadable program called Multi Browser |
| page had installed a script. When I checked the page in | | | | Viewer. This provides you with almost 50 different |
| Firefox 3.5 and then in Internet Explorer 8, everything | | | | computer and browser combinations, but uniquely |
| was fine. So I went on my humble way. | | | | installs a "standalone browser" system onto your |
| The problem for me is that 13% of my visitors use | | | | computer. Other systems only take screen shots of |
| Internet Explorer 7. That's a sizeable chunk of people | | | | your website in alternative browsers. You can't see |
| who were no longer able to access my website. You | | | | what happens when you click on something. Although |
| see, it wasn't that the page did not load correctly, it | | | | Multi-Browser Viewer does that, it also provides 16 |
| was the fact that the page did not load at all. It also did | | | | different virtual browsers, allowing you to actually use |
| not load in IE6, representing another 5% of my website | | | | your website in a different browser. This is proper |
| visitors. Altogether, the changes I had made were | | | | testing and beats simply looking at images of your site. |
| blocking around one in every five people from being | | | | Using Multi Browser Viewer I was able to pinpoint |
| able to see my website. | | | | which browsers were not working with my website |
| Thinking I had tested the site by looking at it in the | | | | properly. I adjusted my page and was then able to |
| latest browsers was clearly inadequate. I know from | | | | re-test, to ensure full web browser compatibility. And |
| my analytics program, Clicky, that around 60% of my | | | | that's important. It now means that all of the 37 |
| visitors use either Firefox 3.5 or Internet Explorer 8. So | | | | different browser/computer combinations used to |
| when I tested my new page, I was happy that the | | | | access my website all work properly - I know, I've |
| vast majority of people could see the site OK. I | | | | tested them...! It also means that no-one is going to click |
| assumed - wrongly - that if IE8 could see the page, | | | | on a link to my site or visit it from a search engine to |
| other versions of Internet Explorer would also be able | | | | be told that the site cannot be loaded. And that means |
| to do so. | | | | my online reputation is not going to be hit as it might |
| Clearly, you can't check all the different browsers | | | | have been. |
| easily on your own computer. If you install Internet | | | | I can't say the same for some websites I've visited |
| Explorer 8, for instance, it merely upgrades version 7. In | | | | today. One well-known newspaper site returned |
| the past week visitors to my website used 37 | | | | several errors this morning when I tried it, another |
| different web browsers. To check that my site is | | | | website I found from a search engine was laid out like |
| compatible with all those browsers I'd really need 37 | | | | an explosion in a typesetting factor in Firefox, but |
| computers...! | | | | looked OK in Internet Explorer and a further web page |
| Luckily there are services online which can help. For | | | | only got half loaded when I tried it. Every day we all |
| instance, you can go to NetMechanic and buy their | | | | have similar problems. Many website owners do not |
| "Browser Photo" service. For a fee of $15 they will | | | | know, because they do not undertake any form of |
| test your site on 12 different browsers. Or if you want | | | | browser compatibility testing. They also don't know |
| unlimited use it's $150 per year per domain. That's going | | | | that their reputation has been harmed as a result, or |
| to work out to be quite expensive if you have several | | | | that they've lost business to someone who has a |
| domains - and with only the 12 main browser/computer | | | | working website. |
| configurations being checked, it would leave me short | | | | Don't let your website fall foul of the varying standards |
| of the 37 I need to achieve. | | | | and ways in which browsers load pages. Make sure |
| Other paid services include SortSite, BrowserCam and | | | | you test your site thoroughly with efficient web |
| Cross Browser Testing. But none of them had the | | | | browser compatibility testing. |