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.

The templates are tested using Yahoo's list of A-grade browsers as a baseline. Other browser and platform combinations tested include Firefox 3 on Mac 10.4 and Safari 3 on Windows XP.

Known template issues

There are still a few known issues with the templates, noted below. We are working to correct these issues.

The search button does not align with the search field properly in Firefox 2 on Windows and Opera 9 on Mac. Traffic to University Web sites using these browser and platform combinations is 1%.
The text in the search field does not disappear when you click into the field in Safari.

U browser and platform traffic

Below are the top browser and platform combinations hitting the University's home page in May 2009. The arrows indicate an upwards or downwards trend in browser use since spring 2008. No arrow indicates the statistic is new to the list.

Browser and Platform		Percent of visitors
IE - Windows		57.20%
Of that 57.21 %:	IE 6.0	31.26%
	IE 7.0	64.53%
	IE 8.0	4.20%
Firefox - Windows		25.18%
Safari - Mac		9.70%
Firefox - Mac		5.16%
Chrome		1.09%
Firefox - Linux		0.43%
Safari - iPhone		0.19%
Safari - Windows		0.18%
Safari - iPod		0.15%

Operating systems

The use of handheld devices is slowly on the rise. The table below shows the operating systems coming in to the U's home page for the month of May 2009.

Operating Systems	Percent of visitors
Windows	84.01%
Macintosh	14.99%
Linux	0.57%
iPhone	0.19%
iPod	0.15% no change
Android	0.03%

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/. The template CSS shows 13 errors when validated. These errors are caused by workarounds in the style sheets that compensate for browser differences.

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).