When you launch a website, one of the things you need to be very aware of is which devices and browsers users are using to access your website. Every year technology changes and how users interact with your website changes.
But one thing will remain consistent and that is the browsers that you should prioritise when building your website.
The technical details
If you’re not a web developer, what you may not know is that every browser renders and treats “code” differently – specifically how it treats DOM elements and renders CSS. One of the methods which we can use to manage this is by using a CSS reset, which essentially establishes a set of baseline standards for your website style that allows all browsers to universally treat your website the same.
These days most CSS frameworks come out of the box with a CSS reset, however if you’re unsure about whether your website has this or not you can google CSS reset.
Testing
Even with a standardised website which allows most browsers to treat the website the same, you still need to be aware of the differences between browsers.
When we build our websites we often create components which may include finicky tools like carousels – these components are great, but can sometimes prove troublesome, especially on mobile browsers like safari.
At the end of the day, once you have finished building your website you need to be testing thoroughly – this includes testing device compatibility such as android phones, iOS phones, tablets etc. You also need to test your website across multiple browsers – this includes popular browsers such as Google Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Safari and more.
So which browser do I prioritise?
Put simply, this depends on your users, if you do actually want to prioritise. Generally speaking you shouldn’t prioritise a specific browser and instead you should try and make your website as universally accessible as possible. However, in rare circumstances your target audience may require a specific browser. Perhaps you work with a company that exclusively uses Microsoft products and you are building an internal web application for them. This would mean you would need to prioritise Microsoft Edge as a browser, however I can imagine that some staff would sneakily avoid it.
Have questions?
If you’re interested in learning more about cross browser compatibility and how we ensure our websites are accessible to every browser, device and is accessible to a range of accessible needs users, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
