Users visit your site from a variety of devices and browsers, thus testing your work on a single browser is no longer adequate. A crucial part of any development process must include cross-browser testing.
Your program should function properly for every user after all of your effort and money. The first step to improving user experience and increasing income for your company is developing a cross-browser testing plan.
What is Cross-Browser Testing?
Have you ever noticed that sometimes when you browse the internet, clicking on a button doesn’t take you to the next page you want to see? Alternatively, occasionally a browser error notice stating that the video format is not supported appears when an embedded video fails to play. The website is not compatible with your browser, which causes these issues.
A compatibility test is called cross-browser testing. It tests a website or online application’s operation across a range of operating systems, devices, screen resolutions, and browsers to ensure peak performance.
It evaluates how a website behaves across several platforms and, in the end, assists in fixing bugs.
Users of older browsers may encounter issues as a result of these browsers’ inability to handle JavaScript functionality and CSS style, which can prevent them from making use of some essential website features.
Thus, a web developer’s priority is to guarantee that a website or application operates as well as possible on all platforms.
Common Cross-Browser Compatibility Issues
The rendering of online pages is a basic topic for cross browser compatibility.
CSS styles increase the intricacy even more.
Variations in font sizes, colors, spacing, and layout are examples of visual discrepancies that can result from browsers’ inconsistent interpretation and application of these rules.
The user experience and design integrity of the website may be compromised by these disparities.
Compatibility issues arise from the fact that not all browsers enable plugins like Flash or Java, and others have them completely disabled.
This may cause certain website features to malfunction or become unavailable to visitors using particular browsers.
To speed up development, web developers frequently use third-party tools and frameworks. However, not all browsers may work with these prerequisites.
The entire stability and functioning of the website may be impacted by malfunctions or performance bottlenecks caused by compatibility problems with certain external programs.
Developers may have a difficult time dealing with browser-specific problems that affect form submission, caching, and other important features. Because these problems might show up differently in various browsers, careful testing and solutions are needed to guarantee consistent functionality and performance.
Benefit of moving from manual to automated testing
Automated testing is often the most effective method of testing. With automation, you should be able to finish more work in each sprint.
Costs usually go up at first, but if your company has adopted test automation completely, you should have more time to concentrate on other infrastructure components.
How to do Cross-Browser Testing
- Start by using your normal browser to examine the website or online application. Look for issues with keyboard navigation, general JavaScript behavior, breakpoints, and other functionality and screen resolution issues. Since certain flaws could be browser-specific, compatibility problems might not completely disappear even after resolving them.
- Selecting the browsers to be tested on is the second step. You may determine which browsers are most popular with your site’s users by looking at web traffic data.
- You do cross-browser testing for each of the chosen browsers in the next step. This action exposes problems that may show up in various browsers.
- You may classify the browsers as high-risk, medium-risk, or low-risk depending on how many and how serious the vulnerabilities are. You may distinguish “browser risk” in this way. The most troublesome browsers are those that pose a higher danger. As a result, the likelihood that defects will surface in low-risk browsers is reduced when high-risk browsers’ bugs are fixed first.
kinds of cross-browser compatibility testing
The following are some of the most common forms of cross browser compatibility and cross-browser testing:
Functional Testing
This kind of testing determines whether a website’s interactive elements and functionality perform as intended across various browsers.
Examples include making sure that buttons are clickable, navigation menus work properly, forms can be submitted, and scripting interactions perform consistently.
Visual Testing
This kind of testing concentrates on how a website or application looks visually on various browsers and devices.
Examples include confirming that there are no visual errors or misalignments and that fonts, colors, layouts, and pictures are shown consistently.
Performance Testing
This kind of testing evaluates a website’s responsiveness and loading speed across a range of browsers and devices.
Measurements of page load times, testing the site’s adaptability to various screen sizes, and making sure resource-intensive elements (such videos or animations) don’t impair performance are a few examples.
Cross-Device Testing
This kind of testing makes sure that a website works correctly across a variety of platforms, such as tablets, smartphones, laptops, and desktop computers.
Examples include evaluating touch interactions on mobile devices, establishing compatibility with multiple device orientations (landscape and portrait), and testing responsiveness on various screen resolutions.
Cross-Platform Testing
Compatibility with various browsers and operating systems is the goal of this kind of testing.
A model is affirm that the site works reliably across iOS and Android gadgets, as well as Windows and macOS computers.
Browser Version Testing
To verify compatibility across several iterations, this kind of testing entails evaluating a website on many versions of a certain browser.
One way to assist consumers who haven’t upgraded their browsers is to test on previous iterations of widely used browsers, such as Internet Explorer 11 or earlier versions of Firefox or Chrome.
Accessibility Testing
This sort of testing ensures that a site adjusts to openness rules like WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) and can be utilized by people with weaknesses.
To make the site more available to individuals with incapacities, a few models incorporate testing keypad route, screen peruser unwavering quality, and the utilization of ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) features.
Security Testing
Confirming that a site’s security highlights and conventions capability reliably across different programs and stages is known as security testing.
Examples include confirming the proper implementation of SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificates, the security of login forms, and the efficacy of security headers like Content Security Policy (CSP).
This thorough testing procedure contributes to a smooth and uniform user experience in a variety of user situations.
Conclusion
Testing across browsers is a fundamental piece of quality control. It can be carried out automatically or manually.
Different advances are accessible to work with quick and powerful browser compatibility testing. Choosing the suitable testing apparatus in light of the requirements of the venture is the web engineer’s liability.
In spite of the fact that testing your site on each program is almost troublesome, you ought to zero in on making it viable with as a considerable lot of the most well known programs, gadgets, and working frameworks as could really be expected — particularly those that are utilized by individuals from your target market.
