There are about 2 billion websites in which around 400 million are active. Several factors contributed to the increment of web applications on the internet, such as growth in internet users. Most of your users tend to search your business online to find more information about your firm.
If your users notice that your business does not hold a robust online market, it might leave a negative impact on your company. So how can you establish your online presence in such a broad competition?
One of the most significant factors that immediately influences the perceptions of your users regarding your websites is how much user friendly your website is. Your website outlook affects the judgment of your users regarding your business.
There are so many types of websites through which you can select a choice suitable for your business.
- Static websites
- Dynamic websites
- CMS-built Websites
- eCommerce Sites
- Web applications
But, do you know that internet users do not stay on a single platform while browsing the internet. There are multiple devices, such as laptops, Computer systems, Smartphones, and Tablets. Each platform has a compatible web browser. It is not necessary that if your website was working fine on a specific platform might work similarly on other platforms.
There comes the Cross Browser Testing technique into action that ensures the smooth working of your websites on all the relevant platforms and web browsers.
What Is the Meaning of Cross Browser Testing?
The Cross Browser Testing is a type of testing technique that checks whether your website works as intended when accessed through different devices or web browsers. It compares the functionality and design of your websites on various web browsers and platforms to make sure it is working consistently for the user. The primary purpose of cross-browser testing is to offer constant website functions across all devices, platforms, and browsers. In this blog, we will discuss the importance of Cross Browser Testing for modern web applications.
Essential Criteria to Consider While Selecting a Browser to Test
There are so many factors that make these web apps to be on top, such as advanced features, necessary services these web apps provide, large business and user network, etc. But, one of the significant factors is that these web apps offer similar user experience in all of the web devices and web browsers. No matter where you access these web platforms, you will find the same web structure and user engagement.
Now take a look at the necessary information to consider while performing Cross Browser Testing.
- Types of Operating Systems: Macintosh, Android, Windows, iOS, Samsung, etc.
- Different Browsers: Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Safari, UC, Samsung, etc.
- Different devices: smartphones, tablets, desktops, and laptops.
- Check the compatibility with web technologies such as Frameworks, Libraries, and Databases.
- Compatibility with assistive tools such as screen, keypad, mouse, touchpad, etc.
It is not possible to include everything in the Cross Browser Testing because you may not always have the time for that. Therefore, test teams design specific test documents and form the outline consisting of test scenarios, timelines, and budgets based on web browsers, versions, and platforms.
Some of the functioning that should undergo testing are:
- Basic features such as dialogs boxes, menus, forms, Website cookies, touch input for mobiles or tablets.
- Check the app’s appearance, such as fonts, images, and layout.
- Ensure the proper accessibility of users to access the web platforms.
- Check the responsiveness of the web pages on different screen sizes/orientations.
Why Is it Necessary to Perform Cross Browser Testing?
- Detects the Browser Compatibility on Your Web Apps
How many web browsers do you consider when you test your website? Do you think these web browsers are sufficient to include your target audience? If you do not know the answer to such questions, then Cross Browser Testing is a necessary practice to make sure that your web app works fine for your customers. Several browsers are available on the market, which makes it impossible to build for and test on every browser-OS combination that may exist. So the more realistic goal is focusing your testing efforts towards web browsers based on the following criteria.
- There are so many popular browsers that you can select based on your target audience preferred top platforms.
Some of the top browsers that cross-browser testers should follow are:
- Chrome 65.89%
- Safari 16.65%
- Firefox 4.26%
- Samsung Internet 3.43%
- Opera 2.05%
- Edge 1.91%
- Analyzing the website traffic stats by analytics tools like Google Analytics and then breaking down the top web browser that your audience uses. Also, examine the devices your customers use to access the websites.
- The popularity of web browsers is also divided based on different OS and devices on which users access the internet. You can prioritize web browsers based on operating systems. As we have stated before, Chrome is among the most popular browsers of all time. But, when it comes to Tablets, these stats changes as follows:
- Safari, 47.42%
- Chrome, 38.66%
- Android, 11.54%
- Firefox, 0.78%
- Opera 0.57%
- UC Browser, 0.27%
The decision of which browsers and platforms to test is going to influence your cross-browser testing technique. You can also focus on specific technology suitable for a particular web browser. Selecting the browsers helps to focus the testing team in fields that will bring more results with the least effort.
2. Improves the UI of the Web Apps
It is a very well-known fact that first impression matters and websites are no different. Users can form an opinion about your web platform in about 50 milliseconds (ms) (that is 0.05 seconds, less than a second) and decide whether they are going to stay or leave. If you want your users to explore your web app a little longer and minimize the bounce rate (an internet traffic analysis term) of your web app, then providing a smooth user interface is necessary.
Some of the factors to consider to maintain the steady UI of the web page are:
- Make sure that the quality of the web page is high to engage the audience.
- Ensure that your web application meets the demands and requirements of your audience to fulfill the purpose of the page completely.
- Make sure to provide the information that your visitors are seeking.
Because customer satisfaction is the ultimate goal, hence you need to provide a UI that your audience can find effortless, and thus it can offer the best possible experience. Images, Videos, Buttons, Links are some of the standard frontend services that your web app should offer evenly in all the web browsers. Therefore, Cross Browser Testing is necessary to perform to ensure an astonishing UI that your users can enjoy.
3. Call to Action Performance Maintenance
With the help of your web app, you might want to attract users to your products and gain customers, or you want to keep your audience engaging on your web platforms. These are the primary purpose of your web applications, and your website can achieve this with Call to Actions.
According to the source Small Biz Trends, only 47% of websites use proper CTAs. But, a property placed CTA can engage users in less than 3 seconds. Attractive and interactive Call to Action is the features of your website that can engage your audience and attract them to click on the buttons or links to get more information on your business.
It is not necessary for CTAs to always be in the form of buttons. There are so many ways a CTA can work. The only thing matters are that your users should get engaged from it.
According to 2017 stats provided by Leighton Interactive, buttons have 4.37% average clicks, images or more complex designs have 2.89% average clicks, whereas texts have 6.27%.
However, such an attractive and unique call to action features would be insignificant if a user cannot recognize and interact with them. It is quite necessary to ensure that your CTAs should be functional and visible, which can be done by testing across multiple browsers and operating system settings. Performing cross-browser testing to check the functionality of CTAs is not very difficult and can be achieved by using cross browsing testing automation tools.
4. Fix the bugs of your web applications
The web application is a combination of codes and templates using technologies like HTML, CSS, PHP, and JavaScript. More and more web technologies keep on adding every to these lists, such as top web techs of this year are Angular JS, React JS, Asp.net, Node JS, and Laravel.
Imagine that you are using a site on your computer system that has lots of gifs and images, and it becomes your favorites immediately. But, then you are traveling somewhere, and you try to access that web app on your MacBook or Tablet using the Safari browser. At the time of loading, it takes lots of time, and even after waiting so long, none of those GIFs and images are loading.
The formation of buttons and text do not align either. You check your connectivity and reload it but, it does work now either. You will not spend time trying to keep on loading it again and find the alternative to that website.
The coding of your web app determines its nature, but not all web browsers support these web technologies. Also, not all browsers are going to render web languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript similarly. You have to make changes in coding to ensure the proper working of your web applications on all platforms.
You might get bugs on the same code that were working fine on a platform to a distinct web browser/platform. Therefore, you need to maintain the web standards and interpretations of different web browsers.
It is essential to find differences among browsers. Cross-browser testing helps testers to debug web language source code uniquely and quickly to ensure that your website will look and behave as intended on multiple web browsers or versions. It also helps to ensure that you do not separate a significant part of your target audience because your website does not operate well on their browser or operating system.
With the help of cross-browser testing, you get to know web functionalities on multiple platforms, and thus be able to offer the best user experience. It can turn out to be a difficult task for the development and quality assurance team, but it is essential to include all relevant browsers to satisfy customers.
5. Make Sure All the Assistant Tools Works Fine
Cross Browser Testing is not only necessary for the look of the web app, but it also ensures that it performs functions adequately. There are so many elements attached to the sites, such as forms submissions, images, video or audio, touchpad, screen resolution, etc. All these parts of the web apps have to work well to serve the application visitors seemingly. The responsiveness of web platforms is quite a significant factor to consider.
Images play a significant role in providing the best web apps response. Do pictures on your web applications adjust according to the web platforms and browsers? Website responsiveness also depends on embedding the auto-adjusting images, which can be tested by Cross Browser Testing techniques.
Another factor to consider while ensuring the responsiveness of your site is by the function Login forms. Forms are a crucial part of the website. Businesses that want to convert their online visitors into customers use login form as a call to action factor to register the users for making them a part of your community. Even the look of the Login forms can change on two distinct browsers. It is necessary to test the login form using cross-browser compatibility testing.
You need to find the differences in the Login forms and confirm that they should not hamper your design requirement. Also, the details entered by the users should store on the app CRM safely. All of these essential factors need cross-browser to figure out such errors in your Login forms to run a successful business.
As you know by now that there are so many platforms in which users can access the internet, and you need to make sure that your users can access the internet on these platforms seemingly.
Percentage of internet users based on different platforms are:
- Mobile, 50.88%
- Desktop, 46.39%
- Tablet, 2.74%
Screen resolution is not the only factor in maintaining the similar use of website platforms on these multiple platforms, but you need to make sure all the functions work fine as well. Smartphone functions using the touchscreen, Desktop has a mouse, Tablet has a touchscreen, while the laptop has a touchpad.
The layout of these web apps varies as the devices change. Therefore, it is necessary to maintain the functioning of web applications by performing Cross Browser Testing to ensure that it works fine in touchscreen as well as using a mouse.
Conclusion
Imagine your salesperson is pitching a customer, and they check your web application on the platforms in which that app does not work, how bad reputation it can give to your business. It can damage the client relationship immediately.
Whereas, if you perform the cross-browser compatible test for your web application, the app will work well on that platform, and the chances of your Sales team closing a lead will increase significantly.
The more web platforms you test for your web applications means a large number of users, which will ultimately impact your business sales. Therefore, performing Cross Browser compatibility testing for the website will also help to expand your Sales team conversion rate.
