Make sure to do your Testing
Today's audience has a wide variety of options available to them when it comes to tools to browse the web. Each provides a slightly different experience due to their level of support for certain technologies.
Do websites need to look exactly the same in every browser? No. A website should allow the user to achieve their goal, whilst offering a fluid experience and not appear broken. However, whilst it isn't required for the page to appear pixel perfect, the user shouldn't see drastic changes of layout should they change browser.
It is therefore our duty to ensure that the work we produce is as consistent as possible and useable by our end users.
Testing & Checklist
- Every developer should have the latest version of each browser installed locally on their machine, allowing testing of websites in production.
- Creative Jar utilises Browserstack, an online service with multiple virtual machines spanning platforms and devices for testing older/other browsers.
- As part of the testing process, a browser compatibility checklist should be completed showing evidence of testing and issues found and resolved.
- At the end of a piece of work, two instances of the checklist should exist in the QA Archive. One with evidence of bugs found, and a final one with all cells highlighted green, demonstrating that all found bugs have been resolved.
Desktop Browser Support
- When deciding on which browsers to support for a project, it is important to look at the user statistics – whether it be from an existing site of the client's, or global data being available for the target user demographic.
- As a rule of thumb, we aim to support the previous major and latest release of each modern browser with a market share above 1%.
Current Support
| Browser | Version | Windows | Mac |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Internet Explorer | Edge |  |
 |
| 11 | |
|
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| 10 | |
|
|
| 9 | |
|
|
| 8 | |
|
|
| Mozilla Firefox | 49 | |
|
| 48 | |
|
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| Google Chrome | 53 | |
|
| 52 | |
|
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| Apple Safari | 10 | |
|
| Opera | 40 | |
|
Usage Statistics
Correct as of .
| Browser | Version | Global | UK |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Internet Explorer | Edge | 2.07% | 4.99% |
| 11 | 7.57% | 12.41% | |
| 10 | < 1% | < 1% | |
| 9 | < 1% | < 1% | |
| 8 | < 1% | < 1% | |
| Mozilla Firefox | 49 | 3.35% | 9.59% |
| 48 | 1.02% | < 1% | |
| Google Chrome | 53 | 45.08% | 44.39% |
| 52 | 1.36% | 1.31% | |
| Apple Safari | 10 | 1.95% | 4.07% |
| Opera | 40 | < 1% | < 1% |
Mobile/Tablet Device Support
As a rule of thumb we will support common operating systems, at their current and previous version with a global market share above 1%. We will aim to support these operating systems on both tablet and mobile devices dependant on company supply.
Usage Statistics & Support
Correct as of .
| Operating System | Version | Global statistics |
|---|---|---|
| iOS | 10 | 13.47% |
| 9 | 9.48% | |
| 8 | 1.99% | |
| Android | 6.0 | 14.66% |
| 5.1 | 15.33% | |
| 5.0 | 8.94% | |
| 4.4 | 16.14% | |
| 4.3 | 1.35% | |
| 4.2 | 3.90% | |
| 4.1 | 2.49% | |
| Symbian | 10.1 | 1.11% |
| Windows | 10 | < 1% |
| 8.1 | 1.41% |