User experience design, AKA UX design is hot topic in web design and rightly so, but I want to take moment to blog a bit about an unsung area that is often overlooked and misunderstood yet critical to UX design–browser experience design.
For years web developers and web producers have been including browser support requirements in their scope documents and programmers have been pulling their hair out trying to replicate the same experience across all browsers. Many in the web development community, Movéo included, believe in and push for increased compliance with web standards, but unfortunately not all browsers comply with or support these standards. So, try as we might to comply with web standards, developers have to “hack” their code to support multiple browsers. What’s most troubling is the fact that MS Internet Explorer, the most widely used browser, is the least compliant.
So what do we do? The answer, browser experience design. Instead of hacking code in an attempt to deliver the same experience across all browsers, web developers should seek to build a stable and accessible foundation that ensures accessibility across most, if not all, browsers and then increase the richness of the user experience as the browser’s compliance to standards increases. Think of it like you might television, you can watch the super bowl on a B&W TV but the experience on a hi-def TV is just way better.
Want to see how your browser stacks up? Take the Acid 2 test below:
First, click here to view a rendering of what a standards compliant browser should output.
Now, click here to test your browser’s compliance with standards.
The good news for MS Internet Explorer users and all the programmers who have to “hack” their compliant code for it to “work” on Internet Explorer is that they are continually working on updated versions. The bad news, most end-users won’t upgrade right away as they are not aware of how bad their browser is and businesses are typically slow to rollout upgrades . But who knows I could be wrong. Here’s hoping!
