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May 02, 2006

Browser test policy

Browser test policy: On the Evolt mailing list, Tony Crockford writes of his current draft guide to clients on how he'll handle browser differences. Basically he'll design to his current understanding of some of the various current W3C recommendations and drafts, specifically naming XHTML 1.0 Strict and CSS2.1. Tony then specifies a list of browsers which he will thoroughly check (IE/Win 5.5+, NS/Win 8+, FF/Win 1.07+, FF/Mac 1.5+, Moz/Win 1.7.13, Opera/Win 8.5, Safari 1.3 -- I'm not sure if "Windows" includes Win2K etc), and a list of browsers he'll spot-check (same browsers back a version or two, and OmniWeb), then a bunch of browsers he won't check at all (IE/Mac, old NS, WebTV and MSNTV, etc). The client can pay extra to upgrade some of these browsers in the testing/support regime. How does this look to you, does it seem like this red/amber/green approach would satisfy the clients you work with? The testing seems focused on Mac OS X and WinXP, no older computers or minority OS or non-computers, but this type of support page seems clearer than what we see with most "AJaX" business plans these days, true...?

Posted by JohnDowdell at May 2, 2006 11:36 AM

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Comments

Thanks for reminding me of this. Another good reason to develop in Flash. Nowhere near as much testing to do. Not that you can ignore it altogether but it's much less painful than something done with AJAX. Testing a web app can be very time consuming and then you add in all the different browsers to consider it gets pretty hairy and adds on to development time.

Then there's the nightmare of debuging for some specific browser and finding out that your fix breaks the code in another browser. Just thinking of it makes me glad that I don't have to work with AJAX.

Posted by: Oz at May 2, 2006 01:11 PM