How to effectively QA a web site...

So, the question is, when there are so many different browsers out there that behave differently on so many different platforms (i.e., IE6 on PC vs. IE6 on mac), how do you effectively test the site you just created for a client?

Well, I look at it two ways. First, I create a document saying what browsers I will guarantee a site to work on. If it turns out that something happens to the site on that browser, on that platform, I make it right for free. There's no sense in my clients buying a site from me that doesn't work, now does it?

Even when that's the case (and in my case, I usually guarantee at least 4 browsers which cover over 95% of the marketplace at the present time... and I always include whatever browser combination my client uses at work and at home. There's nothing like getting that call from the client saying the site is all screwed up so I try to avoid that problem any way I can...), you still need to test the site to make sure it works where you say it will.

With that in mind, say you promise visual and functional accuracy in IE 7 and Safari. Well, right there, you've got to have at least two boxes running at any time. What if you just do IE6 and IE7 on PC? Well, since you can't install those on the same box, again, you've got multiple machines just for QA.

This is a P.I.T.A. any way you look at it.

It's for this very reason that I LOVE BrowserCam.com. They have this rock-star product called remote access which allows you to test your site on 20+ platforms each of which are packed with browsers.

They really do have almost any reasonably popular configuration.

So, there's the solution. You can act like you've got an army of QA people and a whole server room of boxes with this little tiny service.

If you're interested in finding out more, the ClassicPlus service is $800 / year. Check out there web site at http://www.browsercam.com.

If you do decide to go with this solution, consider my fundable collection. With the year long subscription, you get 10 accounts. I've split these up at fundable so that you get all of this power for roughly $80/year.

Check out BrowserCam's product and check out my fundable and let me know what you think. If you've used it before, be sure to leave a comment reflecting your thoughts.

Until Later!!!
- Ray.

Browser Statistics

Just in case you were wondering, you can find browser statistics here at the W3C. Here is the latest data for November of 2007:

2007	IE7	IE6	IE5	Fx	Moz	S	O
November	21.0%	33.6%	1.6%	36.3%	1.2%	1.8%	1.8%

As you can see from this chart, IE7, IE6 and Firefox make up 90% of the market (I wish they broke down FF a little bit further).

This is why we program for these three platforms with respect to functionality and visual accuracy. The way we program is fairly platform independent so it is pretty well guaranteed to be functional in all platforms, but we only, specifically, test for these three.

So, with all of the differences in CSS standards adoption, you might wonder how we make the site visually accurate on all three of these platforms. Well, we use a bit a User Agent (browser) sensitive PHP code to deliver User Agent specific tweaks to a master CSS file. This, combined with the sensibly hybrid CSS/tables layout makes sure the sites we make are visually accurate on all three platforms.

For more info, please feel free to contact us.