GRADED BROWSER SUPPORT VERSION 1.5 SEPTEMBER 2017 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Support does not mean that everyone gets exactly the same thing • Instead, every user should be able to consume as much as their browser can technically support Grades give us a framework to prioritize our support Scope includes all WCMS websites A-Grade browsers are: • Chrome (latest stable desktop and mobile) • Edge (latest stable desktop and mobile) • Firefox (latest stable desktop and mobile, LTS build, UWaterloo distributed) • Safari (latest stable desktop and mobile)

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO GBS V1.5 PURPOSE

1 2 3

To provide a broader Introduce the notion To document our and more reasonable of “grades” of support expectations of definition of browser support for “support” the University

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO GBS V1.5 WHAT DOES “SUPPORT” MEAN?

Does not mean that Requiring the same Every user should be everyone gets the experience for all able to consume as same thing creates an artificial much as their barrier to environment can participation support

Availability and access to Progressive enhancement content should be our priority

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO GBS V1.5 PROGRESSIVE ENHANCEMENT V. GRACEFUL DEGRADATION

Both are approaches to the engineering of “fault tolerance”

GD prioritizes presentation and permits less widely-used browsers to receive less

PE puts content at the center, allows most browsers to receive more

PE is a healthier and more forward-looking approach and a core concept of GBS

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO GBS V1.5 WHAT ARE GRADES OF SUPPORT?

While an inclusive definition of browser support is necessary, the support continuum does present design, development and testing challenges

If anything goes, how do we know when the experience is broken?

To address this question and restore sense of order to the system we define “grades” of support

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO GBS V1.5 SCOPE

Inclusions Exclusions

WCMS websites Portal

• UWaterloo.ca homepage Quest • Waterloo stories Jobmine • FDSU websites • Open Scholar MyHRInfo • Drupal authoring interface

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO GBS V1.5 DEFINITION

X-GRADE A-GRADE B-GRADE C-GRADE

Functional site Unknown Full Enhanced Basic to unknown

Usage Rare Common Rare Rare

Age Modern Modern Modern (outdated) Antiquated

Standards Capable Capable Mostly capable Incapable

CSS3 Full Full Partial to full Limited to partial

Support by team None Full Limited None

Test by team No Full (before release) Not automatic No

Extremely limited (see slide Bux fix by team Yes (ASAP) Yes (at some point) No 10)

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO GBS V1.5 GBS CHART

VENDOR X-GRADE A-GRADE B-GRADE C-GRADE

Safari† Safari 8.x Safari 7.x and earlier Apple Safari Technology Preview # # Mobile Safari†# Mobile Safari Mobile Safari iOS 9 iOS 8 and earlier

Blackberry — 10.x — 7.x and earlier

† Android 4.x and earlier Google Chrome Canary Chrome — Desktop/mobile/tablet Android Webview

Firefox Nightly, Firefox Firefox† Mozilla Desktop/mobile/tablet, LTS build, UWaterloo — — Developer distributed

Microsoft — Edge† IE 11.0 IE 10.0 and earlier Desktop Desktop

Opera, Opera Mini, Maxthon, Other Nightly Webkit builds — — UC Browser, and more

† Latest stable version # Mobile Safari versions are ambiguous, industry tends to relate to iOS versions

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO GBS V1.5 REQUIREMENT LEVELS

X-GRADE A-GRADE B-GRADE C-GRADE

No coding to specifically target X- Must work without hacks (browser Can use shims, which may require Can use shims, but may be grade browsers except for new detection, reliance on parsing JavaScript and/or Flash untested; can require JavaScript standards-compliance or extreme bugs) or shims; should work and/or Flash for certain functions circumstances without JavaScript when possible; cannot require Flash

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO GBS V1.5 REVISIONS

Added Removed Moved

Apple Apple Apple • Safari Technology Preview • Mobile Safari iOS 7 and 6 • Safari 8.x from A to B • Mobile Safari iOS 9 from A to B Google Microsoft • Mobile Safari iOS 8 from B to C • Android Webview • Internet Explorer on Windows RT and other mobile Microsoft • Internet Explorer 9.0 from A to B • Internet Explorer 8.0 + 7.0 from B to C

Blackberry Browser • 7.x from B to C

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO GBS V1.5 ANALYTICS January 1, 2016 – September 1, 2017 DEVICE OVERVIEW

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO GBS V1.5 OPERATING SYSTEM + BROWSER

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO GBS V1.5 BROWSER + DEVICE CATEGORY

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO GBS V1.5 SCREEN RESOLUTION

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO GBS V1.5 MOBILE DEVICE + BROWSER

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO GBS V1.5 MOBILE DEVICE OPERATING SYSTEM

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO GBS V1.5 APPENDIX APPENDIX A: SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS

BROWSER ISSUE OUR SOLUTION

IE 8,0 and below No support for media queries JS must be enabled for RWD experience

JS must be enabled (shim) reference: http:// IE 8,0 and below No support for HTML5 doctype www.paulund.co.uk/turn-on-html5-in-ie8-or-lower

Incomplete support for :before and :after (http://css- IE 8.0 Careful coding; shims may be available tricks.com/browser-support-pseudo-elements/

No support for :before and :after (http://css-tricks.com/ IE 7.0 and below Careful coding; shims may be available browser-support-pseudo-elements/)

Any To be determined (http://caniuse.com) Careful coding; shims may be available

IE 8,0 and below No support for SVG Shim or alternative content

Add filter to CSS for IE7-8, see: http://www.jacklmoore.com/ IE 7.0, 8.0 Issues with transparent PNGs and opacity notes/ie-transparency-problems/

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO GBS V1.5 APPENDIX B: AUTHORING INTERFACE REQUIREMENTS

Much stricter requirements • Only A-Grade are supported, with the exception of Internet Explorer, which is unsupported • Some aspects may require JavaScript

Creation of certain types of content is prohibited • E.g. CSS, JavaScript, iFrames

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO GBS V1.5 APPENDIX C: STANDARDS AND RESTRICTIONS

All system-generated code and, as much as possible, all user-entered information must meet accessibility standards (https://uwaterloo.ca/web-resources/resources/accessibility) and use semantic markup

Videos and sound must never automatically begin playing

Any pop-ups or “lightboxes” must require a click (or keyboard equivalent) to activate

Primary site navigation must never lead directly off-site

Users must always have a way to navigate within the site

No “breaking the back button”

Intro/clickthrough pages are prohibited

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO GBS V1.5 APPENDIX D: PORTAL BROWSER SUPPORT

Google Chrome 23–latest Opera Browser 12.10

Microsoft Internet Explorer 10+ Apple Safari 6+

Microsoft Edge Mozilla Firefox 15+

As at November 13, 2015

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO GBS V1.5