We’re in an era witnessing the creation of over 500,000 websites daily, contributing to a global count of nearly 4 million websites, with only 1.5 million active.
What about the inactive ones?
Records show that 90% of web applications fail due to browser compatibility issues, while 62% of mobile app uninstalls result from crashes like poor responsiveness, often stemming from inadequate cross-browser testing.
These statistics underscore the critical importance of thorough cross-browser testing for developing fully functional web and mobile applications.
Though QA professionals and developers across organizations strive for consistent cross-browser testing, establishing a clear strategy can mitigate bottlenecks that impede timely application releases. It’s time to reassess our tools and approaches to cross-browser testing and seek better alternatives.
Let’s delve into top-notch strategies to simplify, expedite, enhance quality, and streamline cross-browser testing.
Factors to Consider Before Choosing Cross-Browser Testing Tools
Given the plethora of cross-browser testing tools, determining the most suitable ones for your requirements can prove daunting. When narrowing down your options and evaluating cross-browser testing tools, take into account the following factors:
Rectify the Problem you are trying to Solve: Begin by pinpointing the feature gap in your cross-browser testing tools to clearly define the features and functionality required from them.
Who will use it: When assessing expenses and prerequisites, consider the software’s users and the number of licenses required. Determine whether access will be needed solely by the QA software testers or by the entire organization. Once clarified, contemplate whether you prioritize user-friendliness for all users or speed for power users of your cross-browser testing tool.
What are the other required tools: Specify which tools you’re replacing, which ones will remain, and those you’ll need to integrate with, such as other testing or automation tools or bug tracking software. Determine whether these tools should integrate seamlessly or if you can streamline by replacing multiple tools with a unified cross-browser testing solution.
What outcomes are important: Contemplate the desired outcome that defines success for the software. Deliberate on the capabilities you aim to acquire or enhance and establish how success will be measured. For instance, one goal might be to improve performance visibility. While comparing cross-browser testing tool features extensively is important, neglecting to consider the desired outcomes risks wasting significant time.
How it would work: When choosing software, align it with your workflows and delivery approach. Assess both successful aspects and problematic areas requiring attention. Remember that each business’s uniqueness and popularity don’t guarantee suitability for your organization.
Advanced Strategies for Testing Websites Across Different Browsers and Devices In 2024
Here are some advanced strategies for testing the web across different browsers and devices:
Choosing the Right Set of Devices and Browsers
 Selecting the optimal combination of browsers and devices for cross-browser testing like LambdaTest marks a significant milestone in the ongoing process.
Leveraging your product’s usage data to identify customer-preferred devices and browsers is pivotal to initiating this process. After analyzing customer preferences, it’s crucial to regularly update the list to align with changes in the target market’s browsers and devices.
Once you’ve prioritized the essential browsers and devices, it’s critical to monitor and adapt as older ones phase out and new ones emerge. Replacing emulators with real devices ensures accurate results.
Choosing the Best UI Test Framework
Once you’ve established the foundation by selecting the appropriate devices and updating your browser set, the next crucial step is choosing a robust UI testing framework.
A quality UI testing framework streamlines the entire browser testing process, facilitating the development of high-performance applications.
It is advisable to select a framework based on a thorough analysis and understanding of your product’s and team’s requirements.
Choosing Framework for Web Applications
Selenium is the most popular, reliable, and robust UI testing framework for web applications. Not only is it among the easiest to learn, but once embraced by QA and development teams, it helps prevent unforeseen issues down the line.
Selenium’s webdriver facilitates automated cross-browser testing by accepting and executing commands in the browser. Testing teams utilize Selenium webdriver to automate tests for their web applications, directing the webdriver to perform specific actions on browsers and devices.
This automation saves valuable time and allows teams to focus on tasks such as analyzing test reports and conducting manual testing. However, before commencing automation with Selenium, it’s crucial to examine which test cases can and cannot be automated using Selenium.
Choosing Framework for Mobile Applications
Here are the most popular test automation frameworks for mobile application testing, along with their advantages and disadvantages:
Appium: Appium stands out as the leading open-source test automation framework capable of testing various mobile application types, including hybrid, web, and native. It supports testing on Android and iOS devices, leveraging the same library functions as Selenium, facilitating ease of use and adoption. Test cases are executed using the WebDriver interface, and its cross-platform support allows testers to reuse source code for testing on both iOS and Android platforms. However, users may experience slower test processing and occasional flakiness compared to other frameworks.
Espresso: Developed by Google, Espresso is an open-source test automation tool for Android applications. It empowers developers and testers to create reliable tests for Android UIs. Espresso excels in performance, offering faster and more stable tests than Appium. It incorporates advanced practices such as continuous testing, agile development, and DevOps methodologies.
Automation and Parallel Testing
Automating Selenium tests is essential for enhancing test execution time in cross-browser testing. However, complementing this with parallel testing is pivotal for achieving comprehensive and efficient cross-browser testing.
For instance, testing a combination of 10 different browsers and devices with a test case that takes 10 minutes to execute would traditionally require 100 minutes. Yet, with parallel testing, the entire task can be completed in just 10 minutes.
Parallel testing enables simultaneous testing across multiple browsers and devices, significantly reducing testing duration.
Meanwhile, Selenium Grid facilitates test automation by allowing the concurrent execution of test cases in multiple environments. Integrating parallel testing with Selenium Grid ensures optimal cross-browser testing efficiency.
Further optimization can be achieved by integrating this process into a CI/CD pipeline using continuous integration. This approach facilitates earlier and more frequent test cycles due to frequent commits made in a centralized repository.
Use AI-powered testing tools
Regardless of efforts, complete elimination of errors or bugs from a software application is unattainable.
However, it’s feasible to mitigate their impact to ensure high-quality outcomes. Many SaaS product organizations are striving to leverage advanced technologies like continuous integration and DevOps to expedite and enhance the quality of results.
Nevertheless, AI presents an opportunity to accelerate this process further by providing codeless solutions, thereby significantly reducing the time and effort required by QA teams.
Additionally, AI and machine learning can aid in lowering test case flakiness, facilitating ongoing automation efforts, and enabling features supported by AI with minimal human intervention.
LambdaTest is one of the best AI-powered test automation platform for test orchestration, enhanced visibility, and simplified test automation, reducing bottlenecks.
Flexibility and Customization
Thriving in the application industry’s ever-evolving landscape demands a constantly service-ready platform. This entails having hardware and software integrations that offer flexibility for customizations whenever necessary. Given the dynamic nature of the application industry, directly influenced by shifting user demands, ensuring your product is adaptable to meet future customer requirements while consistently delivering quality products within specified timelines is imperative.
Choose a Highly Scalable Testing Platform
Achieving cross-browser compatibility hinges on addressing the market’s dynamic requirements. This necessitates having a mobile device lab capable of seamlessly adding and removing devices based on project needs. Given the uncertainty surrounding combinations of browsers, versions, operating systems, and device versions, your device lab must be highly scalable. This scalability ensures that devices can be adjusted according to project requirements without compromising other functionalities of the device lab.
Safe and Secure for Your Business
The mobile and software application industry encompasses nearly every sector in today’s development world.
Organizations within banking and insurance that are reliant on applications face significant vulnerability to internet-based security breaches and malpractices.
Therefore, ensuring that your product meets all security requirements and holds certification as a compliant security product is paramount for smooth and successful business operations.
End Note
Cross-browser testing is essential for developing high-performance applications, but it can be complex due to various browsers, operating systems, and device combinations.
However, proper planning and strategies can make the process simpler, faster, and more qualitative.
Planning begins by reassessing your list of browsers, operating systems, and devices regularly. If you haven’t initiated this process yet, it’s time to plan your actions. LambdaTest, an AI-based mobile and web application testing platform, offers over 3000 device-browser combinations, ensuring robust compatibility testing across a wide range of devices.
With separate mobile and desktop application testing platforms and user-friendly features, LambdaTest simplifies the testing process. As a cloud platform, it facilitates seamless parallel testing and scalability and incorporates advanced techniques like agile development and continuous integration, enabling faster delivery of high-quality results for cross-browser testing.
