In the fast-paced and rapid digital world of today, keeping yourself updated with the latest technology is vital. Similarly, to remain competitive in a highly dynamic software domain, delivering products and services that are efficient and user-friendly is key too. Combine the two and you get the necessary criteria for you to maintain proper software testing channels to deliver products that meet customer requirements.
Software testing is an activity that is carried out to verify if actual results correspond to the expected results. It also ensures that the software or application, in question, is delivered bug-free. Mobile app testing companies utilise software testing to highlight any defects, bugs or errors either manually or using automated tools.
Due to the rise in popularity of automation tools, the overall industry trend is shifting towards automation. As manual testing can be quite time-consuming and requires a lot of manpower, automation helps provide bug-free applications much easier. Automation is also time-efficient, which lets QA technicians manage test cases and scripts efficiently, improving the overall test coverage. Today, automation testing is commonly deployed in large-scale development projects.
What is Cross-browser testing?
Cross-browser testing is one sort of automation testing. It ensures that the online apps or sites that are created should be acceptable to a variety of web browsers. It’s the responsibility of a developer at a mobile app testing company to ensure that the project should be user-friendly regardless of its usage on any browser or device.
It ensures superior quality of an internet site on different screens. On top of that, it also verifies screen size, resolution, OS and browser version. Cross-browser testing involves testing the behavior of the client-side of an internet application accessed using different browsers.
- Client-side browser testing: The cross-browser testing solution allows testing of web applications on the browsers installed within the system. It checks the compatibility of an application on different browsers by recording test cases for a browser and re-running an equivalent on different browsers without the necessity of re-recording or re-writing the test cases.
- Cloud-based browser testing: Cloud-based browser testing allows you to see and verify web applications on different browsers and OS rather than the configured ones within the system. It checks the software without acquiring the infrastructure of the browser.
Why cross-browser testing?
Earlier, there have been a couple of browsers across the web. Additionally, using the waterfall model design process, developers initially tested the code quarterly or yearly but with the passage of your time, the amount of browsers has increased and development has moved to the agile testing services.
Consumers are using many devices like desktop, laptop, tablet, mobile phones, and lots of browsers like opera, internet explorer, safari, etc. That’s why mobile app testing companies must prepare an internet app or site which is compatible with a series of devices and browsers.
Cross-browser testing makes it easy to satisfy the need of consumers who demand cross-browser applications. With the change of code, there’s a risk that either of the browsers might not respond needless to say, so for better compatibility, cross-browser testing is extremely important.
- Record Script: The script is recorded with the help of an internal/external recorder.
- Automate Script: The script is automated manually using the available command with drag and drop features.
- Execute: The recorded script is often executed across all browsers.
- Report: The HTML report is generated after the execution of the script which may be shared via email.
When to begin Cross-browser testing?
The time to start cross-browser testing is based on the testing methodology and timeline of the project. Testing should begin when faced with these situations:
- Cross-browser testing is often started initially even when one page is prepared for testing. Test that page on every browser and if another page is prepared, test that also on different browsers. Although this increases the workload in the short term, it fixes the errors at an early stage. It’s also cost-effective.
- Start the test when the software is developed fully. Any defects are addressed before the software is sent for delivery.
The least favored time for performing this test is when the software is released.
What to test for in Cross-browser testing?
- The basic functionality of the online application should be checked like links, dialogues, menus etc.
- The graphical interface should be tested.
- The responsiveness of the website to user action.
- The overall performance of the website.
In this world of technologies where being updated and delivering an efficient product is vital, cross-browser testing ensures that the software delivered is efficient and user-friendly.
