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Do you know how your site looks on Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, on a PC or a Mac

Guest post by: Barbara Saul

Article Overview: How does your WordPress website or blog look on your visitor's screen? Do you know how your site looks on Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, on a PC or a Mac - is it something worth checking? of course it is, and this is how you check it.

Do you know how your site looks on Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, on a PC or a Mac

How does your WordPress website or blog look on your visitor's screen? Do you know how your site looks on Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, on a PC or a Mac - it is something worth checking.

Cross-browser compatibility has always been an important consideration and until we are all using the same browser on the same machine, it always will be - though things do seem to be settling down more now and we have fewer headaches than in the days of Netscape vs Explorer, for instance. Good web designers know to check that their work looks good across all browsers as standard, but as more of you are enabled to create your own websites, you also want to know how to check your cross-browser compatibility.

Thankfully there are tools available to us - of course there are! Go and google "BrowserShots"

Try it out on your website, just to be sure... (and don't panic if things don't look as they should - that happens and may only need a small code change to have you cross-browser compatible).

Another option, if you have frequent tests to carry out, might be "CrossBrowserTesting" - you can run their free trial before committing to that level of service.

Now while you're about it, you'd may as well consider your site for usability and accessibility - both are as important as ever and we can become complacent about such, especially those of us using WordPress and relying on the system to comply with certain standards.

Usability is something that you really want real people (as opposed to pretend people!) test out for you.

If you want us to cast an eye over your site, get in touch and we'll do that for you - we've considered usability to be an essential consideration for every website we've worked with.

If you want to know more about this, I'd personally recommend the book Don't Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug - still the most easy to read, common-sense book for everyone with a website of any kind.

Accessibility may not be as hot a topic as it was a few years ago, but is still essential, and really warrants a whole article post of its own (as indeed does Usability). To get an idea about it all though, you'd do well to visit the RNIB's guidelines - they know what their members need and want!

There are tools available at W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative, but that can become overwhelming and automated tools do have to be considered from a human perspective too.

Any questions or comments, please feel free to get in touch, our details are underneath.

Barbara Saul

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Article Tags: checking web browser compatibility, cross broswer compatibilityinternet explorer, making wordpress work
Referred by: http://www.searchengineworkshops.com



Related Forum Posts
Re: Downloaded Google Chrome today - Hi there, I am interested, having downloaded 'Google Chrome BETA' , can you switch from one to another easily? Or Will it be more confusing. I have Internet Explorer and Firefox. When I downloaded all the info to Firefox, there are many in my 'Favorites' which are not in Firefox 'Bookmarks'. Why?? Is there a way that I can transfere all my 'Favorites' to Firefox? In other words, I have a lot stored in 'Favorites'. The only way to access it I have to leave Firefox. If one downloads the new Google Chrome, will it create more confusion?
Forum access problems - Hi GT and moderators, I haven't posted here for a couple of days because I thought the site was down. It turns out that I am unable to access the site on my Firefox browser, although it works as normal for everything else... I only discovered the site was up when I checked it from a computer elsewhere today using Internet Explorer. When I try to access the site from my Firefox I get an "Apache HTTP Server Test Page for evancarmichael.com and an HTTP 403 - Forbidden Access page for evancarmichael.com/Forums/... However, I can access the forum perfectly well on the same computer from my Safari browser. Question: Is anybody else having a problem accessing evancarmichael.com with Firefox? Thanks, DH
Re: Home directory versus inside pages - [quote="Evan":3qmdju4m] Another interesting thing to note is that the layout looks slightly different in Internet Explorer. It actually pushes the ads to the bottom instead of being at the side which will have a definite impact on any earnings potential. [/quote:3qmdju4m] Using the index page you provided, I was able to get to it via Internet Explorer. I bet if you decrease the width of your google ads to 120 X 600 instead of what you've got them at now, that woudl solve your problem... But it is weird, as in Firefox I can indeed, see the Google Ads on the right. They must set their default screen resolution higher or something?
Re: Google Chrome is not faster than firefox 3.1 - [quote="ideasuniversity":2dryqo2w]I told you that i wll post my finding about Google Chrome today, but i am still on it. Google Chrome took 5.55 seconds to login in to my yahoo email while firefox 3.1 took 5.10 seconds. It took 2.22 seconds to log out with Google Chrome while firefox 3,1 took 2.10 seconds. Please do your own finding. I used my stopwatch to test the two[/quote:2dryqo2w] Hi ideasuniversity, Would you switch browsers if Google Chrome was simply faster than Firefox? As for myself, I'm still using IE because of brand familiarity.
Re: A Few Minor Forum Tweaks - Big thanks to GT for pointing out that the tweaks I made were not showing up properly in Internet Explorer - that's what I get for just using Firefox! Thanks GT! It's fixed now!


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