In this internet-dominating world, where websites and mobile applications are the primary source of providing services and communicating with customers, web application testing is a must to enhance the performance and quality of the website. As websites have the power to attract huge traffic, increase conversion and retention rate, your website must ensure a huge great user experience. Hence brands are focusing on web application testing to increase the performance and provide the best user experience to their customers. Due to the frequent release of new mobile devices, browsers and operating systems, one of the major challenges of testing websites is maintaining the compatibility of the web application against multiple device browser and OS combinations. Cross browser testing is done to ensure the compatibility of the application with almost all the devices, browsers and OS in the target market. So let’s have an overview on cross browser testing and the factors that improve cross browser compatibility.
What is Cross Browser Testing ?
Cross browser testing is done to ensure that the application under test is compatible with all the new versions of devices, browsers and OS. Cross browser testing ensures that your web application works perfectly and has no UI issues across different screen sizes , browsers and OS. Also cross browser testing plays a major role in enhancing the user experience of a web application as it ensures clear UI visibility as well as seamless performance.
Factors that improve cross browser testing are :
Automation testing
Cross browser testing suite includes a number of repetitive test cases which is impossible to execute manually, as it consumes huge time and labour. Hence automation testing is ideal for cross browser testing. Automation testing also ensures accurate results as there is no scope for human intervention to cause any errors. It is also cost efficient as less number of professionals are required to perform cross browser testing. There are a number of test automation tools like selenium which provides perfect output for cross browser testing. It’s been a constant effort from all the QA engineers to improve automation testing and cross browser testing. In further part of the blog we will explore these advanced techniques for automating cross browser testing
Parallel testing
Cross browser testing consists of testing multiple devices, browser and operating systems, hence parallel testing is a huge part of cross browser testing. Automation testing with parallel testing is what drives cross browser testing and gives efficient results. Test automation tools like selenium web driver and selenium grid are the most popular tools for cross browser testing which enables to test multiple devices and browsers in parallel. Hence parallel testing increases the speed of cross browser testing by multiple folds. Hence parallel testing is one of the major factors for improving cross browser testing.
Scalability
As we know that cross browser testing is performed to test all the new versions of devices and browsers, having a scalable device is a must for cross browser testing. Also before running the test cases the QA team needs to make a list of all the new devices, browsers as well as remove the older versions of devices and browsers which are not required for a project. Hence having a scalable test automation platform that can easily add or remove devices is extremely important for cross browser testing
Cloud- based test automation platforms
A cloud-based test automation platform is extremely conducive for efficient cross browser testing. One of the greatest advantages of using cloud platforms for cross browser testing is that you can easily perform parallel testing, as unlike the on-premise device testing platform, where parallel testing is extremely complicated and difficult to maintain. The App testing cloud testing platforms easily support integrations of test automation tools and it’s just a matter of few clicks to perform parallel testing. Similarly, cloud platforms are highly scalable and adding and removing devices is just a matter of a few clicks. Also cloud platforms being virtual, has the added advantage of being accessible for 24/7 , from any part of the world. This will help in increasing the productivity and efficiency as the employees have 24/7 access to the platform.
