Cross browser testing is very tedious if not performed properly. Cross-browser testing is done on many online available tools. But, before selecting tools, you must ask yourself a list of questions. Questions that will help you analyze what you should select and which tool will not be in accordance to your needs. Don’t worry, you don’t have to hit google a hundred times, this post will solve a lot of genuine questions that might pop up in your mind. Questions like “what are metrics” and “why should we analyze them before starting our work” will be answered in this blog post along with the list of metrics that should be considered before selecting a tool for cross-browser testing.
Without ado, let’s look into top questions which you should ask yourself before selecting a cross browser testing tool.
How many different browsers the testing tool cover?
Let’s start with one of the most important metrics that there is for cross browser testing. In the world where scores of browsers are competing, it becomes challenging to figure out which browsers to test your website on? However, you can decide on a dozen or so browser versions to start off the cross browser testing process. You can look up your web analytics and decide which browsers are bringing you the majority of your traffic and prioritize testing on them before looking into browsers that are not so prominent contributors to your website traffic.
The main point of cross browser testing is to be able to perform the testing on all the different browsers that are responsible for bringing you traffic. Browser coverage should be the foremost metric that should be checked before deciding on a cloud-based cross-browser testing tool.
Browser Version Coverage
A complete tool for cross browser testing provides a vast browser coverage in its set of browsers so that every browser in your browser matrix is checked while testing.
Which mobile devices the testing tool supports?
It is not surprising that mobile devices and their manufacturers are increasing every day. With this, the manufacturers are also into developing their own mobile platforms to cut the costs for licensing and become free to provide whatever they want and in whichever way they want to their users. Manufacturers are also onto modifying the available and popular mobile platforms according to their own thoughts and releasing them as an independent operating system on their own devices. More platforms mean more options to test your website. While browsers become an independent product, mobile platforms provide their own restrictions on rendering the website. An optimal cloud-based cross-browser testing platform, along with the browser coverage, would also cover all the major mobile platforms which are capturing the market. Considering this metric carefully helps expand the possibility of taking the mobile audience under the umbrella, which unsurprisingly, is huge.
Will it cover Local App Testing?
Local testing coverage is the ability of the software or application to test the website on the local systems. By the local system, I mean the websites that are currently not published and resides on the local system of the developer. This is very beneficial for the developers that develop the website on their local systems like freelance developers etc. Once the testing is complete, the developer then publishes the website. But, before publishing, he needs to be completely satisfied that the website will be seen equally likely on different browsers and systems. Online cloud-based cross-browser testing tools give the developer the ability to test the website on the local systems similar to how he will test a published website. The developer needs to select the online tool keeping in mind how efficient the local testing process is and the ease of doing it.
Which Responsive testing methods are supported in the testing tool?
Responsiveness is the ability of the website to rescale itself according to the screen size. Responsiveness is the main player in the website market today. If your website is not responsive to the hundreds of different screen sizes that appear in the market, you have lost the always going-on war there. If responsiveness is so important to develop, it is as important to test on these browsers, screens and operating systems. Testing the responsiveness of a website also links to the latency factor. If the latency is too high you would not be able to judge how responsive your website is. Joining both of these factors, we get a perfect metric for selecting the tool to be used for testing.
How fast the tool is responding while performing testing?
Latency is a major factor when you are working on the cloud. How annoying it is when the video you have been dying to see is buffering so much that it ruined the complete show or when you are about to take the headshot but are killed due to “latency” in CSGO. The same is the case for cross-browser testing. Cross-browser testing is performed on the cloud these days. If you are still onto the conventional methods of setting up the devices, well, you should not. If you are carrying out the tests on the cloud, they better give you a lag-free experience.
Considering the high-performance website with loads of features that reacts within seconds, it is better that the tool you choose provides the same experience while testing. If the user misses the feature that reacts within seconds, the complete meaning of testing the website is ruined. So, the delay has to be minimum. Now, the latency depends upon a lot of factors among which the major two are the client’s and user’s connection handling capabilities and the server performance. While the client-side is your side, it is better to choose a tool for your testing that gives a smoother experience from the other side.
How adoptive the tool will be for your team?
The learning curve is the amount of experience you are gaining to the amount of effort you are taking in learning something. It can be anything like a software or a language you are learning. While choosing a cloud-based online cross-browser testing tool, it is recommended to choose a software that has a low learning curve. By having a low learning curve it means that the ease of learning the software is very smooth and it is easier to operate it even if the software is being used for the first time. Learning an application or software within minutes makes us more involved in the application which creates more interest with time. The user has more time to experiment on the software rather than investing more and more time in learning it. So, the developer or the tester should choose an application with a low learning curve.
What test metrics, reports, and analytics will the tool provide?
Once the desired tests are performed on the website, the results of these tests are saved as reports for future use. Reports are very useful to analyze the complete tests that contained different modules and plan accordingly for the future. The test reports should give a detailed view of the results and test execution and the software should be chosen accordingly. There is no point in choosing an online tool that gives a single line brief about the tests that have been performed by the tester or developer. The better the test results are summarized, the better it is to analyze. For example, the test log center in LambdaTest gives the details of the tests you have performed in the past along with an option to download everything (like screenshots and videos) with a single click. Such test reports are appreciated among the developers’ community and are a good factor to be inclined towards a cloud-based platform. The next section will highlight these metrics that should be kept in mind while choosing appropriate software or cloud-based cross-browser testing platform.
Cross browser testing is very tedious if not performed properly. Cross-browser testing is done on many online available tools.
How pocket friendly the testing tool is?
Well, if we are talking about the services, we cannot conclude without talking about the price structure of the application. The money invested in the total testing process plays an important role and especially for freelance developers and the developers trying their hands for the first time on web development. Since money is a very crucial resource for any individual or organization, it sometimes also depends upon personal preference. So, honestly, this becomes a metric if you want it to be one. An organization might be willing to spend a little high if they are happy with the additional features they are getting than the other software. But, an individual might adjust sometimes on the features thinking about the money and the plans being structured by the software companies. Since there are a vast variety of people who are willing to test their websites, it is better that the company provides a complete pricing structure. A complete pricing structure refers to the carefully designed pricing scheme for everyone. The best pricing scheme does not leave anyone thinking about adjusting towards the basic features without digging deep into the pockets.
So, cross-browser testing is a very important step before letting your website see the whole world. But, since there are so many options available today, it is quite confusing to choose one and just go for it. To achieve this, a perfect metric is required. It is an analyzed set of parameters and a process of shortlisting the software one by one according to the parameters that satisfy the metric. Once this is done, we are ready for pressing the Run Test button for the first time. So, going back from where we started, you must have noticed how you would be flying blind if you have not prepared the metrics for performing cross-browser testing.