Testing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7?
After you get your store back from your e-commerce design and programming company, who performed a 100 point QA inspection, what is the first thing you should do? If you said test, test, and then test some more, you are correct. It is a fact that computer code is rendered differently for each browser. It is essential that you test to be sure all of your functions show up on each browser. However, today there are a seemingly unlimited number of browser configurations along with a large array of screen resolutions—testing is a big job and can be a headache. Still, if you aren’t testing on the most popular browsers, you may be segmenting your audience.
Perhaps you’re asking yourself, “Do I really need to run right up to my kids’ room and test my site on their PlayStation Portable?” Probably not. Luckily there are only a handful of popular browsers used by the masses and if you have those covered, you are off to a great start. Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari are the 3 most popular browsers and 1024×768 reigns supreme for screen resolution. The affordability of flat screen LCD monitors has caused the bulky CRT monitors to become much less prevalent and any PC bought in the last 2 years should be preloaded with IE7. Mac’s native browser, Safari is gaining in popularity, but it is still less than 10% of the market. However, some of you will have the customer who uses Netscape 4 and isn’t afraid to tell you that your site is broken and impossible to order from when using their computer.
If a customer reports an error on your store there are a few pieces of information that you should get from them.
Have them explain the error. Often times what your client is describing as an error may be user error. User error that frequently repeats itself should be examined carefully. Any error that is more than an isolated incident should be forwarded to your developer.
What page were they on when the error occurred?
What actions led up to the error?
What Browser were they using?
What version of the Browser were they using? Updates are frequent and are often required. (e.g. Firefox 3 had a zero day update that fixed a potential vulnerability. This came less than 24 hours of the initial launch.)
If you can obtain that information, you can get a better understanding of whether you have a true issue on your hands or if the problem is a one off instance. Any customer confusion should be treated seriously, but you shouldn’t hold your web developer accountable for a customer who accessed your store using last century’s technology.
If you only had to worry about 3 browsers and one or two different screen resolutions, what a wonderful world this would be. Sadly, it’s not that simple. Microsoft and Apple are at war for customers and they are fighting it with updated operating systems. As a result, now you need to worry whether your customers are using Windows Vista or Mac OS X Leopard. If you have gotten this far and are feeling so overwhelmed you’re ready to give up, you may want to have someone take on the task of compiling all of these different operating systems, browsers and screen resolutions. Sites like Gomez.com offer “Capture Services” which will allow you to test pages of your site across a long list of combinations.
If all of this browser talk has you ready to run for the hills, don’t let it happen. Testing across a range of browsers is crucial to your business. The bad news is, the number of browsers and configurations is endless and you’ll never test all of them. The good news is, if you cover the major browsers you’ll be ahead of the game - for today…
For more information, visit some of the resources listed below. In addition, don’t forget to check the newly launched Firefox 3 and IE 8 scheduled for release later this year.
References for Browser & Screen Resolution Statistics:
- http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
- http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=0
- http://www.thecounter.com/stats/
Solid Cactus' Director of Account Management Matt Kresge contributed this post
By the E-Commerce Experts at Solid Cactus
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