Two important topics to talk about today, the first one being testing and the second one usability - two very important factors that will either make or break a website.
As I've said before, it is very important to test your site in multiple browsers and if possible it should include testing on an Apple Mac in Safari. Of course if you've only got a Windows PC then you're fairly limited to what versions of Safari it can be tested in. If however, you're using a Mac you now have the option of being able to test it in browsers older than the current version. You might ask yourself why, and in all honesty the answer to this is dependant on your site. If you find a reasonable percentage of users use an older version of Safari then it should really be tested in an older version. In OS X there is a problem though that you can only ever have one version of Safari installed at any one time. Fortunately however, there is now a solution to this problem. Developed by Michel Fortin, Multi-Safari uses each versions original version of the Webkit bundled within the application meaning it will render just as the page would do it a proper install of that version. The following versions are available:
- Safari 1.0
- Safari 1.2
- Safari 1.2.3
- Safari 1.3
- Safari 1.3.1
- Safari 1.3.2
- Safari 2.0
- Safari 2.0.2
- Safari 2.0.3
- Safari 2.0.4
Link: Multi-Safari
Also worth a mention is a list of "30 Usability Issues To Be Aware Of" which has a lot of information that is well worth the read if you are a usability-concious user. They touch on the rules and principles of usability, the psychology behind it, terms and concepts. Each section has a wealth of links worth reading up on to continue what they talk about too, making it a very useful source of information once again from Smashing Magazine.
