HTML5, CSS3, Browser Compatibility and where we're at

In the last 2 months we have been researching HTML5, CSS3 and the feasibility of using the new technology when starting new projects. Our greatest concern was browser compatibility. Even the latest browsers do not support all of the HTML5 features and even the supported HTML elements differ.  Check this link for a browser compatibility list: www.findmebyip.com/litmus/.

We’ve decided that in our implementation we don't just want to validate as HTML5 (validator.w3.org), but also support more advanced features and use semantically correct code. Modernizr (www.modernizr.com) is a fantastic tool that we use to achieve this. It does a feature checklist of the browser on page load and then one can decide on whether to use an advanced element or not.

Lately the YepNope.js library has been built in which makes it really easy to fall back to JavaScript polyfills when an unsupported feature is encountered.  This enables us to use advanced native features of HTML5 and to fall back to custom JavaScript in unsupported browsers.

We are so pleased with the results that from now on all our new web sites will be developed and designed using HTML5! Now if only we can find the time upgrade our own site :)