Cross Browser Website Compatibility Headaches
Website Usability
As web developers, one of the hardest parts of our job is ensuring that a site looks and acts the same across all the major web browsers. A web browser if your not already aware, is what you are most likely using to read this blog post – software that allows you to browse the web.
These days there is quite a range of different web browsers available, including Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, Chrome and more. While they all appear to do the same thing (allow you to browse web pages) how they interpret and display the code behind a website tend to differ. For example you can build a website that looks great in Internet Explorer, but does not even display to a user using Firefox. In this example what do you think a Firefox user is going to think of your website? Users don’t stop to think about cross-browser compatibility when they see a problem on your site – they just assume your site has a problem (which in the end it does).
While creating a Google Analytics account for a client last week using Internet Explorer 8, I noticed a pretty bad issue with the horizontal navigation. Take a look:
This problem only existed in Internet Explorer – if you were using any other browser the site would of looked perfect. Being Google you almost think that this type of thing would never happen however it does and goes to show just how difficult it is to always get these things right.
If you are in the process of engaging a web developer to build your website, I heavily suggest you double check they are testing the site to make sure it works on all the major browsers. I have had times when a client will call asking why their website is not doing what it is meant to – only to find out in some major browsers the menu is missing, or checkout button does not work.
November 4th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
I don’t see cross-browser compatibility as a usability issue. It’s merely a basic technical issue.
Also, something not functioning as it was intended (such as your menubar example) can create a usability issue, but the opposite does not necessarily add to user experience. It might just mean that you have functioning bad design, as opposed to non-functioning bad design.
Ooops, one more… Building a website that “looks great” is not necessarily Usability either, although it can disguise poor Usability (particularly to clients) quite well.
December 9th, 2010 at 12:49 pm
Hey stewiemac, thanks very much for your reply. As you can see from the article if you read it again, the post is merely demonstrating the difficulty of keeping a website consistent through different browsers, and the importance of getting it right. While cross browser issues can most definitely affect website usability it was not the prime message in this post.