Testing Is Not Fun but It's Necessary
Having broken links on your website or page layouts that look fine in Internet Explorer but make no sense when viewed in a different browser, such as Firefox, sends a red flag to your customers and any potential new customers.
For example, I am thinking of joining my local chamber of commerce. I checked out the website and nothing is happening this summer, so I decide to wait until fall. I figure that in the meantime, I'll sign up for the mailing list to keep informed. I click the link and nothing happens. I am working on an Apple computer using Firefox. I go to my Microsoft Windows XP machine, figuring the problem is a Firefox / Apple HTML code problem. I click on the link from my Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 and again, nothing happens. So I try to click on some more links in the What's New section. None of them work. Hmm...let's go check out the Chamber of Commerce website in neighboring Cambridge instead. When this happens on your site the exact same thing happens - Company A has a broken link so let's go back to Google and check out the next company on the list.
Microsoft and Internet Explorer still control a high percentage of the browser software market. According to my research they continue to command between 70% and 85% market share in the United States. Meanwhile, Firefox is ranging between 13% and 30% depending on the source of the reports. Either way even at 10% of US web users, that is a huge number of potential clients. If your clientele is technology savvy, the percentage of Firefox users is probably somewhere closer to 30%. Know your audience and test your site accordingly.
Even if only 10% of your web site visitors use Firefox or another Mozilla offshoot it could pay to test your site and its updates against these lesser known browsers. You never know what kind of purchasing power lies behind that website visitor. If you are adding around ten pages of new content per month an extra hour of work with testing should be enough to make sure your site is viewable by 95% of the people using the Internet.
A tip - developing your site for Firefox browsers generally makes it take less time to ensure the site look good across browsers. After developing for Firefox, Internet Explorer-displayed website pages will generally look fine with minor tweaking. If you develop for Internet Explorer many things will look fine in Internet Explorer, but look really odd in Firefox and the other Mozilla Based Browsers.
For example, I am thinking of joining my local chamber of commerce. I checked out the website and nothing is happening this summer, so I decide to wait until fall. I figure that in the meantime, I'll sign up for the mailing list to keep informed. I click the link and nothing happens. I am working on an Apple computer using Firefox. I go to my Microsoft Windows XP machine, figuring the problem is a Firefox / Apple HTML code problem. I click on the link from my Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 and again, nothing happens. So I try to click on some more links in the What's New section. None of them work. Hmm...let's go check out the Chamber of Commerce website in neighboring Cambridge instead. When this happens on your site the exact same thing happens - Company A has a broken link so let's go back to Google and check out the next company on the list.
Microsoft and Internet Explorer still control a high percentage of the browser software market. According to my research they continue to command between 70% and 85% market share in the United States. Meanwhile, Firefox is ranging between 13% and 30% depending on the source of the reports. Either way even at 10% of US web users, that is a huge number of potential clients. If your clientele is technology savvy, the percentage of Firefox users is probably somewhere closer to 30%. Know your audience and test your site accordingly.
Even if only 10% of your web site visitors use Firefox or another Mozilla offshoot it could pay to test your site and its updates against these lesser known browsers. You never know what kind of purchasing power lies behind that website visitor. If you are adding around ten pages of new content per month an extra hour of work with testing should be enough to make sure your site is viewable by 95% of the people using the Internet.
A tip - developing your site for Firefox browsers generally makes it take less time to ensure the site look good across browsers. After developing for Firefox, Internet Explorer-displayed website pages will generally look fine with minor tweaking. If you develop for Internet Explorer many things will look fine in Internet Explorer, but look really odd in Firefox and the other Mozilla Based Browsers.
Labels: QU, Quality Assurance, website maintenance, wesite development
