Testing Lab

Way back in 2001, when I was working at Molecular, I set up a testing lab for UI and compatibility testing. (An aside: I just checked out their website and find it funny that they are now an “Internet Consulting Firm” offering “Business Process and Digital Strategy.” They also have some Digital Strategy positions open.) If I remember correctly, the lab consisted of about 5 desktops which ran a number of VM machines with different browsers.

Now that GreenSpotStudio.com is launched, I am getting reports of bugs with various browsers. The problem is that I don’t have access to the 20 or so virtual machines I had set up at Molecular. Most of my friends run Firefox, and if they don’t, I laugh at them. I’m sure Safari and Opera are great browsers, but designing for the 3% that uses these browsers seems like a big waste of time.

That being said, I want to make sure the User Experience across browsers is fairly consistent, since the site is pretty low technology. I was looking around for an online validation or compatibility service, but haven’t had any luck. Any suggestions or thoughts on automating the process of compatibility for stylesheets and code would be greatly appreciated!