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Lesson 3 Web browser considerations
Objective Define browser considerations.

Web Browser (Considerations)

When designing eBusiness solutions, it is essential to determine which browser and which versions of browsers your eBusiness solution must support. Specifically, you should consider:
  1. Which browser features will the solution require?
  2. Whether your site is compatible with the capacity of your audience's browsers?

Browser features and versions

As you learned in the previous lesson, browsers typically provide a number of features that vary from browser to browser, or browser version to browser version.
Whether your browser supports XML is an especially important consideration. If you designed an eBusiness solution that delivered its content to end-users in XML, only those users with supporting browsers could actually use your system.

Your audience's browser

You also must make sure your clients and customers are not shut out of your site because their browser version cannot hold the content your Web servers produce. Your knowledge of your clients' browser version depends on whether you're planning for a B2B or B2C solution:
  1. For intranet or perhaps even B2B solutions, you may be able to know, control, or influence the type of browsers being used.
  2. In B2C solutions, however, you will have no such influence. As a result, you will need to design for the lowest common denominator. Use the market-leading browsers that do not significantly inhibit market access to your site.
Question: If you're choosing a browser for a B2C solution, why is it a good idea to choose one of the more popular browsers on the market?
Answer: It will be supported by most systems and most servers. Therefore, you will not exclude any potential customer from your site because of low bandwidth or poor system support. The next lesson is about the role of Web servers in an eBusiness solution.

Web Browser - Quiz

Click the Quiz link below to check your understanding of Web browsers and the factors to consider before choosing one.
Web Browser - Quiz