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Press release
22 June
2005 - SciVisum study shows that Websites alienate Firefox users
One in
Ten Websites Alienate Browser Users
-- SciVisum urges adherence to CSS2 web standards --
One in ten websites fail to provide full and complete access to visitors
using non-Internet Explorer browsers such as Firefox and risk alienating
customers and suffering consequential revenue losses.
This is the primary finding of research undertaken by web testing specialist
SciVisum, which examined a number of well-known sites using the Firefox
browser and checked site compatibility with recognised web standards.
Of 100 UK leading consumer websites that SciVisum tested, three per
cent were found to be turning away non Internet Explorer (IE) web browser
users and seven per cent of the sites included non-standard code recognised
only by Internet Explorer.
Websites that turn away non Internet Explorers users include Jobcentreplus
and the Odeon . Sites that embed
non-standard web coding, typically recognisable to only Internet Explorer
include British American Tobacco and
an insurance site of Lloyds TSB www.insurance.co.uk.
SciVisum advises web developers to develop code only around the CSS2
web standard, the official Cascading Style Sheets 2 specification, presented
by the World Wide Web Consortium.
CSS2 is a style sheet language that allows authors and users to attach
style such as fonts and spacing to web documents. By separating the presentation
style of documents from the content of documents, CSS2 standardises web
authoring and site maintenance. Non-standard code limits a websites' audience
and alienates users of alternative web browsers.
"When webmasters design first for Internet Explorer and not
standards-compliant browsers, they so often end up restricting user access
to the website which has detrimental affects for a company. Surprisingly,
after all these years, users of standards-compliant browsers are still
faced with sites that do not support their browser or with a link suggesting
they download Internet Explorer, a browser they had presumably chosen
not to use," said Deri Jones, CEO of SciVisum.
Firefox, which has a reported 50 million, downloads since its launch
in November 2004, now accounts for almost seven per cent of the browsers
in use today. Many industry experts expect it to reach ten per cent in
the US this year - and it's growth has prompted Microsoft, who had not
intended to release any major updates to Internet Explorer, to announce
that version 7 is now planned.
In Germany, where Internet users have been more willing to adopt alternatives
to Microsoft, Firefox is already up to 24.2 per cent. This rapid growth,
which shows no sign of slowing down, has been attributed to Firefox's
ease of use and its security features.
"Companies who value their brand need to address browser issues immediately.
This means ensuring all international standards such as CSS2, which is
intended to help web developers separate content from presentation and
to make sites more accessible to those with disabilities, are adhered
to," said Jones.
Developers who have made the move to standards-based design are now
reaping the benefits in terms of time saved in reduced redesign time.
Guilty websites
Odeon (http://www.odeon.co.uk),
a major cinema chain has received criticism for months for accessibility
issues - even now its' opening 'splash page' seems at first glance to
be working fine but click on the 'enter' button and Firefox users are
offered a blank page.
On the Jobcentreplus (http://www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk)
home page, Firefox users find that the 'Job search' button opens a new
page, but the user can't perform a search, because the first choice "Select
a Job Group from the list" is an empty box.
Online insurance site, http://www.insurance.co.uk,
run by Lloyds TSB works, but gives the user the visual impression that
it is broken - menu items have 'missing images' icons in Firefox, but
not IE.
Similarly, a FTSE100 tobacco company, British American Tobacco's website
(http://www.bat.com) effectively hides
most of it's pages from Firefox users - *their menu system doesn't auto-expand
to show sub-menus which it does for IE users; so visitors must instead
realise that small icons adjacent to the visible menu choices will reveal
the hidden content."
Update 3rd August 2005 - theBAT website has been corrected and now performs
the same for IE and Firefox in this regard
Most improved
Electrical retailer Powerhouse Online's new web design at http://www.powerhouse.co.uk
went live in May, and it now no longer excludes any Firefox users. Likewise
in the last 10 days, English Heritage at http://www.english-heritage.org.uk
no longer forces Firefox browsers to a non-graphical version of the site.
Recommendations
To overcome some compatibility problems a web manager can plan for web testing
to identify any non-standard coding lurking in their site, ready to clean
it up at the next upgrade
Based on the findings, SciVisum made a number of broad recommendations
to improve access to websites:
- Insist that your website developers check pages using standards-compliant
browsers including Firefox first - not just Internet Explorer
- Move your site design to cascading style sheets CSS - these will
make your site more accessible to the disabled, and will simplify the
site development itself through separation of content and presentation
- If you're planning a total site redesign, do consider some of the
now very feature rich Open Source content management systems - several
give you pretty standards compliant websites out of the box - consider
Plone (www.plone.org), Mambo (www.mamboserver.com) and several others
- When planning or upgrading 24/7 monitoring of the core user journeys
on your site, ask your test house to explicitly report on any non-standard
IE/Firefox issues they come across.
SciVisum undertook the web browser testing between May and June, 2005.
All information in this release is correct at the time of issue.
*Sentence amended on 28th June 2005 following a request from British American
Tobacco to clarify the statement further
- ends -
About SciVisum
SciVisum is a UK based web site testing specialist delivering engineered
testing services to help organisations measure and improve the performance
and functionality of business critical web based systems. The company's
in-house research and development, test expertise and web-focused test
methodologies enable uniquely thorough testing and monitoring of complex
web applications.
SciVisum testing helps to protect online marketing campaign spend, by checking
real time that the key User Journey transactions on a portal are functioning.
It also tests that key visitor tracking code in each page is correct; without
this certainty, marketing budgets on CPC advertising may not be properly
tracked and shown in Marketing department web analytics reports - or worse,
the distribution of costs to traffic suppliers may become in dispute due
to lack of reliable tracking. Through SciVisum's testing and recommendations,
clients are able to substantially increase visitor rates and customer satisfaction
levels by achieving gains in key functional page delivery times, increasing
ability to handle peak load levels, and reducing sporadic but user-numbing
error rates of 1 to 5% that most sites un-wittingly force on their users.
Clients come from a wide range of sectors and include Cameron McKenna, Boden,
T-Mobile, Shell, British Library, Surrey Heath Council, Scottish & Southern
Energy, The Stationery Office, National Savings and Investment Bank, uSwitch
and etc Test services include: Load testing /Stress testing: SV-Load;
24/7 functional monitoring of complex multi-page User Journeys: SV-Monitor;
Accessibility testing to the WAI guidelines: SV-Access; Functionality &
troubleshooting audits and consultancy: SV-Function
Media contacts
Sam Grace/ Sarra Mander
Rainier PR
Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7494 6570
Email: sgrace@rainierpr.co.uk/smander@rainierpr.co.uk
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