Web Design and Browser Support for Troubleshooting Issues

As a web design, website design and online marketing company we have solved all manner of strange problems with client websites over the years. We never expect our clients to be I.T. experts but there is a certain amount of information we require when providing support to clients experiencing issues.

Capturing Information about your browser and computer

This website is a great starting point for any of our web design, SEO or other online marketing clients experiencing potential browser compatibility issues.

By visiting www.supportdetails.com a site visitor is quickly given a snapshot including:

• Operating system
• Screen resolution
• Web browser and version
• Browser size
• IP address
• Colour depth
• JavaScript status
• Flash version
• Cookie status

This snapshot can be emailed or exported directly to a PDF or CSV.

Whether you are dealing with one of our account managers or web designers this is the sort of information that can make resolving your issue much simpler and faster!

Web Design or IT Support? How to create a screen shot

Sometimes a site issue is connected to an individual user and not necessarily a result of any particular configuration on their browser or computer. They may be viewing an unexpected URL or may have entered particular content on a page which has resulted in an unusual result for them.

In most instances the fastest way for us to get to the bottom of an issue is to see a screen capture of the website or page they are currently seeing (and sometimes the screen before they experienced the issue). The process for this is different for Macs and PCs.

Performing a screen capture on a PC

When looking at the screen you want copied, find the button on your keyboard that says “prt sc” or “print screen”. It’s normally located in the top right corner of your keyboard. Sometimes you will need to press this button in conjunction with the shift key – this will depend on your computer.

Once you’ve pressed this button your computer has done all the hard work. All you now need to do is go into a program that can include images (like Word or Outlook) and press “Ctrl + V” (to paste the stored screenshot).

Performing a screen capture on a Mac

To capture the entire desktop, press “command+shift+3”. A copy of the screen shot will automatically be saved to your desktop as a PNG. This image can then be added to an email as an attachment.

Ruling out web design or hosting related speed issues on your computer

One of the other common issues we hear about is slow performing websites. It is important for us to know if a slow performing website is the result of a website design or hosting issue, or if their internet speed is generally poor. A slow running website can affect how that website is perceived by Google for search engine optimisation (SEO) and other forms of online marketing. The best way to test the source of any performance issue is to visit a 3^rd party website which will test the upload and download speed of your internet connection. There are plenty of sites which perform these sorts of tests, one of which is www.speedtest.net.

By visiting this site and clicking the button to “begin test” you can get a reasonably accurate speed test which can then be forwarded on to our website experts for analysis.

Then, using the screenshot methods described above, you can take a snapshot of your speed results and email them over to us nice and fast!