Purpose
Public sector web sites have the responsibility to be as inclusive as possible.
Rules
All European Commission websites must offer an optimal browsing experience on every browser which has been used by at least 2% of its total users in a year.
To date, the minimum browser versions that must be supported are:
- Chrome 93.0 to 98.0
- Chrome Mobile 93.0 to 97.0
- Microsoft Edge 96.0
- Safari 14.0, 14.1, 15.0, 15.1 and 15.2
- Mobile Safari 14.1, 15.0, 15.1 and 15.2
- Firefox 92.0 to 95.0
- Microsoft Edge 93.0 and 98.0
The content must also be accessible to those visitors not using mainstream browsers. This means applying a progressive enhancement approach, where features not supported by the latest browsers technologies can still function without adversely affecting the user experience.
Assistive technology (screen readers or any other alternative web browsing systems) and open source operating systems (e.g. Linux, FreeBSD) should be tested even if they account for less than 2% of users.
IMPORTANT: even if it accounts for a bit more than 2% of our visitors, we took Internet Explorer 11 out of this list because we do not recommend using it for performance and security breaches. DIGIT has stopped its support, and Microsoft is phasing out this solution.
Please note: serving W3C compliant pages is a first step to ensure high compatibility across devices.
Guidelines
Always check content and functionalities on different displays and operating systems. Minor differences may exist across environments and browsers, but users should be able to perform their tasks without being affected by the used device.
Depending on applicability, you should test:
- navigation
- forms behaviour
- JavaScripts
- back buttons
- cookies
- embedded content
In general, a website should be navigable even with scripting, images and CSS turned off.