Recently an attendee at my last V&V workshop asked about validating a browser used on their iPads at their company. It was a new one on me.
My initial reply:
However, since you are using the browser only for viewing - that's your requirement - you'd just need to verify that the views you pull up are correct. So I'd write a description of the scope / purpose, state your requirement(s), do a brief IQ (desired browser(s) there), OQ (browser(s) operate), and PQ(s) (browser information is correct), consider any applicable Part 11 issues under OQ, and this may be an exception to my class recommendation on number of PQs. One PQ, having a small sample, say n=30 (use my citation for n=30 in your narrative, from Juran and Gryna's "Quality Planning and Analysis"), might be sufficient, basically comparing what you pull up on the browser(s) being used in your company, with another source(s) / alternative browsers. The risk seems to be low to non-existent, so I'd analyze risk in the document to justify the minimal verification effort. If you've already validated the use of the iPads in your use environment, perhaps some of your tests involved use of a browser, and you could add an addendum to that validation to specifically reference the browser usage, and that there were not problems noted.
Also, there is no guidance document on browsers. Any browser use is probably not a serious issue for validation, in that basically what it does is find a URL, or a subject on some server based on what you type in. Then you in a sense verify the results when you check what was found against your request. Browsers are not responsible for accuracy of content, which the user is responsible for. Depending upon how you use it, you may be able to show that there's nothing to verify in its operations. If so, I'd write that as part of the rationale or justification for not doing a V&V and include it in the file, or make that the brief file.
