Testing and Validation

Browser and platform testing and support

All template pages have had extensive testing on numerous browsers and platforms (listed below) to ensure that they work and render properly for the largest audience possible.

Table-based templates have no issues with any browser listed. All-CSS templates have issues noted at the bottom of the list. There are no issues with all-CSS templates in the most commonly used browsers.

As of March 2008, we recommended that your Web site support the following browsers:

• IE 6 and 7 for Windows XP
• Firefox 1 and 2 for Windows XP and Mac
• Safari 2 and 3 for Mac
• Netscape 6.2 through 9.0

Testing for readability on IE 5 for the Mac is recommended. The all-CSS template layout does not render properly in IE 5 for the Mac, but the text on the pages is readable.

All-CSS template issues—The template header does not not render correctly in IE4 for Windows; the body text overlaps the footer on all versions of Netscape on the PC; the background images do not appear on any versions of Netscape on all platforms; text and graphics positioning does not render correctly on IE 5.2 for the Mac.

Below are the top browser and platform combinations hitting the University's home page in March 2008. The arrows indicate an upwards or downwards trend in browser use since fall 2007.

Browser and Platform		Percent of visitors
IE - Windows		63.86%
Of that 63.86 %:	IE 6.0	43.39%
	IE 7.0	56.38%
Firefox - Windows		23.25%
Safari - Mac		7.43%
Firefox - Mac		3.85%
Netscape - Windows		0.33%

AOL's support for Netscape ended March 1, 2008. Recommendations for testing on Netscape will be scaled back as usage continues to drop.

Non-graphical browsers

Lynx is a text-only browser available via interactive umn.edu accounts or downloadable at http://lynx.browser.org/.

Text-to-speech readers

JAWS is a text-to-speech reader for Internet Explorer on Windows. JAWS is available to students, staff, and faculty in adaptive technology labs throughout campus. Contact the Computer Accommodations Program for more information on text-to-speech readers.

Validation

Validation of XHTML and CSS files is crucial for producing Web sites that work correctly and consistently across multiple browsers and platforms. All University developers should make a special effort to ensure all pages have been checked for validation.

The CSS files available with the templates have been validated with the W3C CSS validator at http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/ as valid CSS 2.

The XHTML pages have been validated with the W3C XHTML validator at http://validator.w3.org/ as valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional.

Additional testing methods

In addition to testing on the browsers mentioned above, the templates have also been tested under other situations that users may encounter.

Disable browser features

All pages in development should be tested with images and JavaScript disabled.

Testing without CSS

Because some users may choose to disable style sheets or are working with browsers that do not support style sheets, the templates have been tested with style sheets turned off. To ensure consistency in development, all developers should continue to test pages with and without CSS.

Testing tools

Several tools are available that can make your testing and validation easier.

For Firefox, download the Web Developer toolbar for any platform.

For Internet Explorer, download the IE Developer toolbar (Windows only, of course).