Nearly every web developer has done more or less cross-browser testing at some point in their career. Maybe you just used random browsers until the allotted testing time was over, maybe you closely worked together with the QA department to execute well-planned testing? Regardless it’s always good to have a checklist to make sure cross-browser testing is correctly planned and executed in a repeatable manner. Here I would like to share our internal cross-browser testing checklist which has taken shape in well over 100 different testing projects.

Preparation

• Do you know what browsers / operating systems your target audience uses?
• Are all needed browsers available for testing?
• Do you have any needed mobile devices handy?

General

• Does the page specify the correct DOCTYPE?
• Is an X-UA-Compatibility meta tag used?
• Does the HTML validate correctly?
• Does the CSS validate correctly?
• Does SSL work correctly in all targeted browsers?

Layout

• Is the layout consistent across browsers and operating systems?
• Are all images available in retina and standard resolution?
• Are used fonts available in a working format for every browser?
• Are audio files available in enough different formats for all targeted browsers?
• Are video files available in enough different formats for all targeted browsers?
• Is the responsive layout working in all targeted browsers?

Functionality

• Are all used Plugins working in the targeted browsers / operating systems?
• Are animations running smoothly on all targeted browsers?
• Are all form validations working across browsers?
• Are all dynamic interactions like forms working across browsers?
• Are all interactions working equally good with touch and mouse?

By sticking to this checklist we are able to perform cross-browser testing much faster and in a predictable way. Do you know anything that we should add to this list? Please feel free to share it in the comments!

Photo by Stuart Chalmers