Ensure Your Website's Cross Browser CompatibilityPosted by Bowden McKinney on May 17th, 2021 I was recently contracted to edit a clients existing site, a very professional looking site which probably did not come cheap. Beautiful graphics, effective in its marketing theory and powerful at conveying messages. However the first thing I noticed once the page loaded was a misplaced graphic. The issue was in the code, Firefox was having some trouble reading it. I checked in WEB BROWSER, sure enough, it had been fine. Seems the designer worked in WEB BROWSER and hadn't checked they layout in other browsers. Because the client also uses IE, neither of these knew about the design flaw... but for 46% of the web viewing population, these were seeing this as their first impression. It is important to look for cross browser compatibility so that your sites design, and much more importantly, your message isn't lost in browser translation. For designers, developers and webmasters, it's assumed by the client that your job will be done professionally and their site will work for everyone. Here are four steps to make sure that your website is cross browser compatible. 1. Use Clean Valid Code Whether utilizing a template or creating your own design, I cant stress the importance of clean, valid code. When get more info is valid, a browser knows what to do with it. Cleaner code helps search engines crawl through your information more easily, and gives your visitors a better 'as-intended', faster loading experience. For template users, search for a reference to HTML/CSS validity. For code writers, check w3schools for reference to valid code. In the event that you eventually opt to work with a piece of invalid code, understand the purpose of that code, then check and check, in multiple browsers, that it's not ruining your pages. 2. Validate HTML/XHTML Run your website through W3's HTML Validator. When I started writing code, my pages would come back with hundreds of errors. Validation can be quite a long, arduous process. Starting with good code might help avoid major headaches (for you personally and your clients). It can be tricky to get errors in code. The Validator reports each error by line number. The specific type of code the error is on is sometimes hard to find, and can become even harder when working with PHP software (such as a WordPress theme) that pull pages together from separate files. If you go through errors with patience, I believe a person with basic html knowledge will get through validation with a little practice. Don't Give Up. 3. Validate CSS Next, run your site although CSS Validator. This tests for CSS level 2.1. CSS3 is available and working in many browsers. Obviously CSS3 will not validate here, but I personally feel that its Not a good enough reason to ditch CSS3. Just be sure to sign in your browsers to see if it works as intended. 4. Check with BrowserShots.org Most users have either Firefox or Internet Explorer on their local machine so its an easy task to test your designs. But think about all the other browsers available? Because of BrowserShots.org, you don't have to install every browser to know what your site looks like. Check the browsers you need to test from their list, allow site do its job, and they're going to take a screenshot and show you how your pages look in each browser. Be patient, it requires a while to deliver your screenshots.Like it? Share it! More by this author |