Our organization recently implemented Sharepoint 2010. During testing, functional users noticed that the application “looked different” or rendered information that was impossible to read on different browsers. The test team was called in to help after the fact.
We started by defining the “gold standard for browers“. We knew we could not test every browser and version. We utilized marketshare.hitslink.com and said that any browser over a 1% market share would be tested.
We then started to look for tools that test multiple browsers/versions without requiring you to load each version.
We tried:
- IETester
http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage - Microsoft Expression Web4 Superpreview
http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/web_overview.aspx
The problem with these testing tools are:
- You can’t change the host file.
- You can easily interact with the web page desktop. I found it impossible to see mouseovers.
- You can’t identify or change the underlying OS system. This is important because different operating systems utilize different components for rasterizing fonts. See http://blog.typekit.com/2010/10/15/type-rendering-operating-systems/
Our solution was to setup a machine with multiple virtual operating system/browser combinations. This way they could be compared to one another. Note that Internet Explorer does not allow for multiple browers on the same system while Firefox will allow for multiple versions. This allowed us to capture almost all cross brower issues.
About the Author
John Miller Certified Test Manager