Having a website is a must in these competitive times since it helps you reach a wider audience and improve your online presence, whether you are an organization or an individual. As per Forbes, there are 1.13 billion websites in the world as of February 2023, proving how important web apps are in our lives. However, it is also true that many applications get rejected by users for multiple reasons.
Most application uninstalls happen due to issues like poor responsiveness and alignment issues.
“Do users see a website or app the way that we want them to see it?”
If not, that is because you have failed to test the website for browser-specific compatibility. When that happens, the website will not provide a consistent user experience across all browsers, thus creating a poor impression of your website. How can someone ensure that their website will run perfectly across all browsers and devices?
Cross browser testing answers the question!
If you’re a newbie to cross browser testing, let us first explain what it means. Going by the textbook definition, cross-browser testing refers to verifying that web applications work as expected across many combinations of web browsers, operating systems, and devices.
Is Cross Browser Testing Important?
As we all know, HTML and CSS languages are nothing but simple markup rules that instruct a browser how to respond when it receives a set of instructions. As the latest browser versions keep coming up and there are differences in the code rendering, it can hinder the user experience. For example, a brand-new effect may show up exemplarily on Chrome but might cause rendering issues in other browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari.
What causes these disparities?
These are the factors responsible:
• Differences in user-defined settings
• Differences in the default settings on a browser or operating system
• Differences in the engines used to process web instructions
• Variations among clients in the version support for recent web standards
• The use of assistive technologies
• Disparities in hardware functionality
That’s where cross browser testing comes into play. It helps identify broken functionalities, fix usability issues caused by an incompatible browser or browser version, and improve the way the web app or site renders the page for a positive user experience.
What Does Cross Browser Testing Ensure?
Cross browser testing ensures a positive user experience, no matter which device or browser is used. It ensures:
- The end-to-end experience
It makes sure that all the interconnected pieces of a website that must run in the browser are in place
- Perfect rendering
It ensures that the interface renders cleanly and clearly in all browsers tested
- Response to input
The testing ensures that inputs effectively respond the same in all browsers
- Performance
It verifies that the site will load in a reasonable amount of time on all devices
The Benefits of Cross Browser Testing
When you perform cross browser testing, you ensure that your website will create an excellent impression with its perfect functionality and user experience.
- Helps create a positive user experience on a website, irrespective of which browser or device visitors use to connect
- Without the testing, a website’s appearance and functionality may fail to meet client expectations and leave users on those platforms with a negative impression.
- Cross browser testing helps you impress your end-users with your website’s responsiveness and positive user experience
- Creates a better user experience that results in higher conversion rates, which translates to more revenue for a business.
- It helps improve a website’s discoverability and rank in search engine results.
- Gives a complete understanding of how a site performs on different channels and proactively notifies customers of features that are only supported on certain browsers.
There are two major kinds of cross-browser testing- manual and automatic.
Manual cross-browser testing
In manual testing, the browsers the application should support are identified. Testers will then need to manually run through each test case in each environment, observe how the application behaves in each browser, and report any bugs that come up along the way.
The major drawback is that it’s daunting to cover each browser this way following every code change. Moreover, it might be difficult to gain access to devices for each test case. The manual testing process is both costly and time-consuming.
Automatic cross-browser testing:
The automated testing process is reliable, easy to maintain, and fast to execute. It typically involves using tools that contain the test infrastructure to run an unlimited number of tests in parallel. It easily plugs into both developer workflow and QA workflows. Automation testing basically reduces human intervention and, in turn, the margin of error. Lots of tools are available in the market to make this easier.
Among the many automation tools available for cross browser testing, scriptless solutions, cloud-based solutions, and AI-based solutions are most preferred because of their multiple benefits.
The advantages that automation testing tools offer:
- You get screenshots for the pages and links submitted, showing how they appear in multiple browsers.
- Multiple browsers are synchronized as per the operations performed on one, with the results presented browser-wise.
- They display the rendition of a page at multiple screen resolutions.
- When an issue is encountered, a video or screenshots are recorded to transport the problem for further evaluation
Conclusion
As we have seen, automated testing platforms are ideal for cross browser testing as they make the complicated cross browser testing experience easy, efficient, and less time-consuming.
Here, it is worth mentioning TestGrid, an AI-based intelligent and cost-efficient codeless, end-to-end testing platform designed to simplify and streamline testing efficiency that lets rapidly deliver high-quality digital experiences.
TestGrid allows testers easy remote access to thousands of real devices and browsers whenever needed, ensuring that every app is comprehensively evaluated to verify if they provide a consistent user experience. With TestGrid, you are assured of a highly secure infrastructure where every public device is wiped completely after testing to ensure there are no leaks of sensitive data.
