Browser compatibility is an important aspect of web development, especially in a constantly expanding landscape of web browsers. Each browser has its characteristics and implementation of standards. A website that does not work correctly in a particular browser can have negative consequences, such as users abandoning the site and switching to competitors. This negative impact can damage brand reputation.
Therefore, it is important to ensure browser compatibility with real user conditions, which involves testing a website or app on real devices and browsers. Mastering web browser compatibility testing with real user conditions helps ensure that the website or application is accessible and functions correctly for users in any browser. This can help identify bugs that users might encounter in the real world.
Understanding browser compatibility testing
In recent years, the exponential increase in technological advancement has led to faster upgrades and changes. However, many people don’t evolve as rapidly as they resist change, resulting in outdated technology usage, which consists of minor options, specifications, and less compatible ones. They may slow down the entire system, causing an unpleasant user experience. Browser compatibility testing helps to ensure that no users are left behind after updates.
Browser compatibility or cross-browser compatibility testing encompasses both functional and non-functional testing of websites and web applications. It ensures that a website or web application’s features function as intended across various browser versions on different devices.
Different web browsers have unique configurations and code interpretation features; due to differences in the versions, websites may look different in different browsers. Browser compatibility testing guarantees that the website’s various features and capabilities are accessible to users across different device-browser-OS combinations browsers.
Importance of Browser Compatibility Testing
The web is highly fragmented, and several browsers are accessible to view web material. Every browser contains its most recent and older versions, and each of them reads the code differently, causing browser compatibility issues. These problems or errors can annoy users, leading to not wanting to use the app anymore. This could damage the application’s reputation and miss out on potential users.
The fragmentation situation is made worse because these browsers can be accessed through various devices with different operating systems. Browser compatibility testing helps developers ensure their website or web app works efficiently on all the browsers and devices they support, so users have the same experience when using the app regardless of device.
This testing enables the tester to avoid load failures because of outdated browser versions, preventing website crashes due to a lack of the latest JavaScript or CSS features support and providing accessible technology for differently abled users.
Some other reasons why browser compatibility testing for websites is necessary are:
- Positive brand reputation: A flawless website on all browsers is the face of the brand in the online environment. If your website or app works correctly, it creates a positive brand image, which contributes significantly to fostering user trust. Furthermore, catching and fixing compatibility issues early on reduces the cost of website development.
- Enhanced User Experience (UX): A patchy, broken, or unattractive website leaves users dissatisfied and impatient, leading to poor user experience, negative impression, and excessive bounce rate. Cross-browser compatibility testing provides users with a uniform and seamless UX across multiple browsers.
- Audience reach: Users choose specific browsers for their personal likes and needs, such as security or compatibility with old devices. Websites working seamlessly across browsers can give a competitive edge. Browser compatibility testing helps ensure that the application is accessible to the broadest possible audience.
- Improved Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Google and other search engines consider a website’s responsiveness for SERP rankings. Cross-browser compatibility testing makes the website a whole package to be ranked in different browsers.
- Support Accessibility: Performing cross-browser compatibility testing not only ensures that the website works on different web browsers but also enables testing that the site works with assistive technologies that are for visually or otherwise impaired people.
Types of Browser Compatibility Testing
Cross-browser compatibility testing can be classified from different angles, each targeting a specific area of the website or application to ensure that they work well on different browsers.
Below are some common types:
- Browser Version Testing- It validates that the website functions correctly on different versions of one browser.
- Multi-browser testing- It verifies the reliable operation across different known browsers, like Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, and possibly others based on the end user’s need.
- Platform Compatibility Testing- This testing concerns browsers to ensure that the website works properly on various platforms. Users may use Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, Linux, or other machines. Platform compatibility testing aims to guarantee a seamless user experience regardless of the operating system being used.
- Rendering Engine Compatibility Testing- Modern browsers employ rendering engines to show information on websites. Different browsers have their unique rendering engines. Therefore, it is a must that the website undergoes compatibility testing with these rendering engines so it can display properly regardless of the browser being used. This test helps in reducing the chance of having display issues later on.
- Responsive Design Testing- This testing ensures that the website is correctly displayed on desktops, tablets, and mobile phones, guaranteeing a seamless user experience.
- Assistive Technology Testing- This testing is intended to ensure that the website is accessible to users with disabilities. It tests compatibility with assistive technologies such as screen readers, voice recognition, and keyboard navigation tools.
The Common Issue With Browser Compatibility Testing With Real User Conditions
Browser compatibility testing with real user conditions is incomplete without encountering these common issues:
- No CSS Reset: Every browser has CSS styles. These browsers’ CSS styling causes the website to render differently.
- Device fragmentation: Users access websites on a wide range of devices with different operating systems, screen sizes, and resolutions. This variability leads to inconsistency in how a website is displayed or functions.
- Browser Versions: Users may use various versions of the same browser. Ensuring compatibility across these versions can be challenging, especially when the browser is frequently updated and changed.
- Network Conditions: In real user environments, Internet speeds and latency often vary. Resulting in performance issues in slower connections, impacting how a site loads and operates.
- Responsive Design Issues: Ensuring website responsiveness across all devices can be tricky, as some elements may not scale or align properly on different screens.
- Lack of Valid HTML / CSS Interpreting: Various browsers handle HTML and CSS differently. Some browsers are quite intelligent in that they modify the code accordingly, rendering the website correctly, while other specific browsers render the page erroneously.
- Limited Testing Resources: It can be resource-intensive to test every potential browser-device combination, leading to gaps in testing coverage.
- Varied user behavior: Different users interact with websites differently, depending on their habits and preferences. This variability makes it harder to predict how a site will perform in real-world scenarios.
Addressing these common issues requires a robust testing strategy, user feedback integration, and regular updates to testing environments.
Best Practices to Handle Edge Cases While Performing Browser Compatibility Testing in Real User Conditions
Browser compatibility testing with real user conditions involves testing a website or app on real devices to ensure that the app works correctly across different browsers and devices. This helps in identifying bugs that users might encounter in the real world.
Here are some best practices for browser compatibility testing with real user conditions for the smoothest experience:
- Test on Diverse Testing Environments: Use a variety of devices and browsers to cover a wide range of user conditions. Emulators and simulators can help, but sometimes they may overlook bugs. Testing websites across real devices and different web browsers is essential for accuracy, as it helps to identify bugs that users may encounter in the real world.
By testing in real-world contexts, testers can configure device settings to test how the app or website behaves in different time and language settings, as well as how it adapts to different touch gestures and device orientations. This will help in figuring out problems early on so that testers don’t run into any technical issues later down the line.
- Define Edge Cases: Identify common edge cases that are relevant to the application, like outdated browsers, unusual screen sizes, and specific user settings.
- Use the right automation tools: Browser compatibility testing is an extensive task that can be achieved accurately with automation. Check out the right set of browser compatibility testing tools and frameworks to make the test process more efficient and achieve comprehensive test coverage faster.
Embracing automation teams can stay agile and responsive to the ever-evolving landscape of web browsers and devices, leading to a better user experience. Automation tools not only save time and effort but also simplify repetitive testing tasks, identifying any issues and resolving them quickly.
Utilizing a platform like LambdaTest alongside others offers a comprehensive suite of features that significantly enhance the browser compatibility testing process. LambdaTest is an easy-to-use platform that provides a wide range of browser options without building and maintaining expensive device labs, significantly enhancing the browser compatibility testing process and giving the audience the best experience possible.
LambdaTest is an AI-powered test orchestration and execution platform that allows testers to perform cross-browser testing across a wide range of 3000+ modern and legacy devices and browsers on a real device cloud. Using this platform tester can also perform both manual and automated testing of web and mobile applications at scale.
Live interactive testing, performance testing, responsive testing, and automated screenshot generation across multiple browsers for quickly identifying UI discrepancies are some of the compelling features of this platform. Its integration with CI/CD tools like Jenkins and Travis CI offers a more agile development process and helps catch issues early.
In short, by combining automation with manual testing capabilities, seamless integrations, and a user-friendly interface, it empowers testers to deliver a superior user experience across all platforms and devices.
- Create a browser matrix: This involves creating a list of browsers and their versions to test the application on. A browser matrix helps limit the development and test coverage efforts to a targeted set of browsers and devices, considering that not all browsers support the same CSS and JS features.
Restricting the number of supported browsers helps teams focus on the most popular ones relevant to their target audience’s needs. It also helps in reducing the website’s exposure to cross-browser bugs.
- Conduct code validation: Validating code following W3C standards is crucial for web developers. Properly validating websites against W3C standards not only ensures browser compatibility but also improves SEO and eases maintenance. Testers can utilize online validators or text editor tools like Adobe Dreamweaver, and ensure code adherence.
- Test critical features support: Prioritize testing the features and functionalities that are most important to the users and are supported by all targeted browsers. Some features, like CSS Subgrids, may work in one browser but not in another, affecting user experience.
- Research the audience: Performing market research for the target audience is very critical before directly starting cross-browser testing randomly. Therefore, identify the target audience for the application and determine which browsers they are likely to use. This helps in analyzing the right set of browsers to be tested to ensure compatibility with the most commonly used browsers by the audience in specific geographies.
Conclusion
In conclusion, browser compatibility testing is necessary to ensure the correct operation of the entire application across browsers. It is a strategic approach to improving organizational efficiency and brand position in the market.
Browser compatibility proactively identifies and tests for edge cases, enhancing the application’s robustness and ensuring a better experience for all users, regardless of their conditions and browser used.