Sunset Bowl

As the device and browser landscape continues to grow and developers continue to find ways to implement more features and functionalities, our job of making universally usable websites will remain challenging. Integrating capabilities testing into our development process allows us to take full advantage of state-of-the-art features without ruining the experience for the users of less capable browsers and devices.

It’s important to remember that the approach described in this article does not endorse the use of any particular set of tests—just the idea that you should test to make sure capabilities exist before trying to use them. We welcome any ideas and suggestions on how our approach can be improved and extended.

The Wall of Innovation

Progressive enhancement has become an established best-practice approach to standards-based development. By starting with clean, semantic HTML, and layering enhancements using JavaScript and CSS, we attempt to create a usable experience for everyone: less sophisticated devices and browsers get a simpler but completely functional experience, while more capable ones get the bells and whistles.

That’s the theory, at least. But in practice, enhancements are still delivered to most devices, including those that only partially understand them—specifically older browsers and under featured mobile devices. Users of these devices initially receive a perfectly functional page, but it’s progressively “enhanced” into a mess of scripts and styles gone awry, entirely defeating the purpose of the approach.