In early September Google released its new open source web browser, Chrome. Chrome was created to meet the needs of today’s web user. By emphasizing applications and customization, Chrome aims to help make the web faster, safer, and easier.  But could Chrome cause you to lose business? Only if you don’t follow some quick, easy steps to adapt.

A new mainstream browser means websites need to adapt to a new “engine.” The engine is the part of a browser that controls how a webpage is rendered; how the physical page looks on your screen (in other words, the way HTML, CCS and JavaScript are displayed). The actual browser is just a shell built around that engine.

Fortunately, Chrome was designed to be fully standard compliant, meaning sites should appear as they are meant to. This is of course unless a site was developed for Internet Explorer, as many sites were just a few years ago. Thus, the older your site is, the more likely it is that viewers may experience difficulties viewing content from a browser other than Internet Explorer.

Just as Brattle has always designed our clients’ sites to function correctly and appealingly in Internet Explorer and Firefox, from now on we will also incorporate Chrome into our design and testing process. But unless your business’s site was developed last month or this month, we recommend viewing your site using Chrome to verify compatibility with this new, popular browser. If Brattle has been involved in the creation or modification of your website, we will also be happy to review your site and make changes to ensure that it is ready to be viewed with any browser. Along with this complimentary assessment, we also include a full grammar, spelling, and punctuation review of your site content. We consider a content review a valuable service because in order to present a reputable image for your company, an error-free image is vital.

So take a look at your site using Chrome (easily downloaded at http://www.google.com/chrome), and if any graphics or  text do not load correctly, or if the general design of your site seems to have been lost in translation, don’t hesitate to give us a call.

As always, please contact us with any questions you have about how we can help you optimize your web business, whether through browser compatibility or any other aspect of the process.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 17th, 2008 at 9:54 pm and is filed under Newsletters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.