We know that majority of the internet users uses Microsoft Windows as the operating system. But they all do not use the same version of Windows. There is another 10-15% Apple uses and a significant percentage of Linux users. The operating system capabilities also cause differences in the display of contents by the browser. There are special capabilities as well as limitations for most of these operating systems, and any page that leverages those capabilities may not be displayed accurately by same browser in another operating system.
For example, a page that utilises a Font that is supported exclusively by Mac will not be correctly displayed in other operating systems. Also, some fonts will look different in different operating systems and can distort the displayed contents.
Now, with the fast growing popularity of tablet PCs, the combination expands to mobile operating systems including iOS version.
The screen resolution is another factor that will add to the complexity. Different screen resolutions with PC and mobile devices and the clients to the web content, the complexity in managing the display consistently becomes more complex and at the same time more relevant to provide a consistent user experiences across devices and configurations.
Before we discuss how to test these, let us briefly discuss why developers use tags, plug-ins and technologies that are not consistently rendered across platforms. If everyone used only the tags that are understood by all the browsers and used only plug-ins that are supported by all browsers, and did not use attributes that are not consistent across browsers, we could have avoided this whole issue of inconsistency.
So we know that there will be in-consistency, we know there are ways to prevent it and still will use newer and emerging (and hence less supported) ways of rendering content. Is that the issue? I do not think so. That is the way technology has always emerged. Inventions and discoveries have changed the way we work and the way we use things. But they were all a gradual change with varying rate of change or adoption rate.
I have read an interesting comparison of browser compatibility with the Television technology. From the days of the black and while CRT based televisions, the technology has progressed to . But, Not all televisions that are currently in use does not support colour, high definition and 3D. But the television broadcasting is continuously enhancing and the TVs handle the transmissions matching their capability.
So is the case of web technologies as well. They technologies emerge, the standards improve, and the browsers do a catch-up. So, we will develop a strategy, accepting the fact that inconsistency in rendering contents is a reality. We will discuss more about that in the next.
I test. Therefore I am.
