Testing web sites for satisfied users
Because of minor differences in their implementation of web standards, web pages must be carefully tested with a variety of browsers to ensure that they look their best.
Testing and fine-tuning for different browsers
We always test pages with the following browsers, and ensure that pages look correct in them:
- Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 for Windows - used by about 80-85% of Internet users.
- Mozilla Firefox 1.5 (Gecko engine) - used by about 10% of Internet users (available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux)
- Opera 8.51 - used by 1-2% of Internet users (available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux)
- Konqueror 3.4.3 (KHTML engine) - used by 2-3% of Internet users (Linux, available as Safari for Mac OS X)
Additionally, we can also test with Internet Explorer 5 and 5.5 for Windows, which together are used by 5-6% of Internet users, though this number is falling. Their support for web standards is poor, however, and some loss of visual detail may be necessary.
Different screen resolutions and font sizes
Users have different needs. Some have poor eyesight and require large fonts. Some have older monitors that work at low screen resolution, though most nowadays use 800x600 or more. We test each browser at a variety of different settings.