by A. H. Manjikian

Created on: November 20, 2011   Last Updated: November 21, 2011

There is an old adage that says “Never assume.  It makes an ass of you and me.” This is especially true with browsers and how they display web pages.  Even though there are standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to help facilitate and promote consistency between web sites, the differences between the various browsers and the hardware / operating systems that they are running on can lead to some very interesting and unexpected results.

Most of the time, it is layout, or the position and size of the text and graphics on the page, that is affected by the browser.  Overlapping text, big white spaces and then what appears to be a column of text appearing halfway down the page, or weird, unrecognizable characters are all signs of a web site being designed and tested in one browser but not  another. For example, prior to version 4, Safari on PC would render text at least one point bigger, and sometimes, somewhat bolder than other browsers. This, in turn, would affect the page layout because the number of characters that would fit on a line would be different and therefore cause the text to wrap unexpectedly. Since a user only takes about 5 to 20 seconds to judge a website before deciding whether or not to move and the layout and design are the first things that make an impression, this should be enough to mandate the practice of testing in various browsers.

Then there is the fancy stuff like Flash and JavaScript. A piece of JavaScript can work on three or four browsers and then completely bomb on a fifth because of the way the script is coded, some other script or piece of code that is running on the website, and even the hardware that the user is using.  Flash doesn’t work on Apple Mobile devices. So if a key animation or the whole site’s interface is done in Flash, then it is useless to a person on an IPod Touch, IPad, or IPhone. That’s why it is always a good idea to have not only a JavaScript backup for the Flash, but an HTML no script tagged alternative for when the JavaScript is turned off as well.

Security, especially in forms, needs to be tested in various browsers since they may have add-ons that enhance the user experience, but can catch the unprepared website off guard.  NoScript, Grease Monkey, and the Web Developer Toolkit in Firefox allow users to alter how a form behaves.  NoScript blocks the execution of JavaScript on a website. So if a form depends on only JavaScript validation,

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