Cross Browser Testing On Desktop & Mobile

Why Is Cross Browser Testing Important?

Have you ever thought about what might happen if a user visits your website and discovers that your website is not rendering correctly? Instead, the user would prefer to switch to another website. According to a report by Zendesk, 50% of the customers will switch to a new product if they come across a bad product experience. It means that without rigorous testing, you potentially lose customers as well as their respective conversions.

Any website consists of different components like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript etc., and handling of these components varies significantly from one browser to another. Maintaining uniformity across platforms helps in building an improved end-user experience.

Before rolling out your website, you have to ensure that the site renders correctly on different browsers, browser versions , devices, and operating systems. Cross-browser testing helps achieve enhanced user-experience by identifying cross-browser compatibility errors of your websites and web apps. This helps in debugging the issues at a faster pace. It also helps to ensure that you don't compromise on the end-user experience.

When Should Cross-Browser Testing Be Performed?

Cross-browser testing should be performed during the development process, ideally after significant changes or updates to ensure compatibility across different browsers. Majoraly it can be divided into two phases:

During Development Phases: Conduct cross-browser testing at various stages of development, such as after implementing new features or updates, to catch compatibility issues early.

Before Deployment: Prior to deploying any changes or updates to production, perform comprehensive cross-browser testing to ensure consistent functionality and appearance across different browsers and devices.

Who Performs Cross Browser Testing?

In general, anyone who develops or designs the web application can test the app. However, the approach can vary from one organization to another. The software testing team or the development team is primarily responsible for performing cross-browser testing. Research analysts and digital marketing experts often play a crucial role by gathering data for usage and traffic for jotting down the most prominent browsers and devices.

The QA team performs cross browser testing to determine the end-user experience. The same test scenarios are tested across multiple platforms and browser combinations to ensure uniformity of functionality. On the other hand, the development team tests the layout and UI features like-images, fonts, alignments, etc., on multiple browsers and make the necessary code changes.

Why Do Cross Browser Compatibility Issues Occur?

Cross-browser compatibility issues happen because each web browser has its own engine, responsible for showing website content. When you visit a web address, the browser engine interprets the website's programming (like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript) to display it. Since each browser interprets code differently, it can lead to compatibility problems. Cross-browser testing helps catch and fix these issues before they affect users.

Cross-browser compatibility issues stem from variations in how each browser renders content. To deliver an exceptional user experience, you need to carefully specify HTML, CSS, and JavaScript properties. However, some CSS properties may not work well across different browser engines. Cross-browser testing is crucial as it resolves these compatibility issues, ensuring seamless performance for your website and web applications across various browsers.

How To Select Browsers For Testing?

With the plethora of browsers, devices, and operating systems out there, it is challenging to cover all the major browser and OS versions. It is recommended to limit the research effort to optimize your website's scope within your target audience. You need to analyze the most significant browsers and versions on the following basis:

• Based on Popularity: Select the most widely used browsers on a range of platforms like Windows, Android, macOS, etc. It helps in prioritizing the test activity along with enhancing the test coverage. You can find the recent trends of popular browsers and platforms through web analytics platforms such as StatCounter, Statista, NetMarketShare, etc.
• Based on Web Analysis: Measure your website traffic using Google Analytics to find user statistics and analytics. Try to break down those analytics further based on the browser, OS, and platform used by the target market audience.

Based on the above research, select the major browser and OS combinations having high user-traffic. Generally, marketing and Data research plays an essential role in jotting down the most popular browser and operating system, which then helps product and testing teams ease their functional area efforts.

Strategies To Follow Before Cross Browser Tests

Below are the strategies for making cross browser tests easier and faster:

• Select Important Browsers & Test Scenarios: According to W3C, Selecting important browsers for testing should be based on their relevance to your target audience. Chrome, Firefox, IE (Internet Explorer), and Safari are widely used, so prioritizing these browsers makes sense. However, if your target audience predominantly uses specific browsers, focus on those instead.

For test scenarios, prioritize critical ones first, considering factors like time, risk, and required tools. Test essential features across major browser-OS combinations. If bugs are found, communicate test case results to the development team promptly for resolution.

• Set up Virtual Machines and Emulators: Setting up virtual machines and emulators is essential for effective cross-browser testing. When running test scenarios across different browsers and versions, developers often encounter compatibility issues like broken images or margin inconsistencies. For instance, a website may appear flawless in Safari on Windows but display differently on macOS. To ensure thorough testing, it's wise to create virtual environments with distinct operating system versions and browser combinations. While browser extensions can emulate other browsers, they may not fully replicate their behavior. Virtual machines and emulators provide a reliable solution, allowing developers to identify and address compatibility issues accurately. By testing websites across various browser and OS combinations, teams can mitigate potential issues before deployment, ensuring a consistent user experience across platforms.
• Use Mobile-First Approach: A significant percentage of users today access websites through their mobile devices. Cross browser compatibility issues often occur when websites are viewed from mobile devices, which also impacts responsive design. That's why most businesses are taking a mobile-first approach when developing a website. It helps to ensure the compatibility of websites over mobile devices. The development and testing team often relies on third-party emulators. An ideal solution is to test the website compatibility on real mobile devices.
• Incorporate Automation and Parallel Testing: Manual testing involves extensive human effort, and the testers may skip specific test scenarios. A smarter alternative is to use automation testing tools like Selenium to help testers test scenarios as many times as possible. The results are going to be accurate every time. Running tests in parallel improves the efficiency of cross browser tests. Parallel testing enables running tests on multiple browsers and devices simultaneously. Selenium Grid allows test cases to be simultaneously run in multiple environments.

Read: Effective Strategies for Cross Browser Testing of a Web Application

How To Perform Cross Browser Testing?

Once you have selected the popular browser-OS combinations, you can initiate your testing process.

• Establish the Foundation: Before you start, conduct a simple test to understand how your website and web app performs in the current scenario.
• Prepare a Test plan: Prepare a test plan on how to perform the test. Planning is going to ensure you cover all facets of the browser test. Select the popular browsers based on traffic analysis. You must cover the aspects like functionality, responsiveness, responsive web design, and assistive testing.
• Choose Testing Method: You can choose either the manual method or the automation method. You can use automation tools like Selenium to automate your test cases and execute your test scripts on different browsers and OS configurations. Choosing automation testing is feasible where the use cases can be described in a single test case. Automation testing helps locate bugs at a quicker pace.
• Setting Up Infrastructure: In order to test on different operating systems and devices, a huge infrastructure has to be set up. To achieve this, use virtual machines, emulators/simulators for your testing. But this may not be a feasible approach; instead, you can do this by using cloud-based cross browser testing tools. LambdaTest is a cloud-based infrastructure that offers testing across 3000+ browser-OS combinations. You can execute your tests over a secure environment at a minimal cost.

How To Build A Browser Compatibility Matrix?

When you have a plethora of devices and browsers available, you need to devise an effective cross-browser testing strategy to perform cross browser compatibility on platforms that matter to you. You need to formalize a browser compatibility matrix based on the target audience, geo-location, and usability trends. A Browser Matrix is a structured list of browsers that ensures that you cover all relevant browsers and reduce the effort involved in development and testing.

To build a browser compatibility matrix, You have to get vital data points comprising platform, desktop browser usage, and mobile browser usage.

• Platform: Platform specifies the medium through which your user accesses the website. It may be a laptop, a desktop, a smartphone, or a tablet. You need to be sure what is the most popular platform for your customers and ensure its cross browser compatibility.
• Desktop browser usage: The use of a desktop browser for a specific operating system varies depending on the geolocation (or the location from where the site is accessed). Take a look at the most frequently used browser combinations of various Windows and Mac operating systems.
• Mobile browser usage: There are multiple browsers available for Android and iOS mobile devices such as Safari, Chrome, Chromium, etc. Check out which mobile browser is the most prominent among the target audience.
• Compare different platforms: Discover what your customers prefer over the other and take immediate care of the preferred ones. In every aspect, you must know the best combinations for your customers.

On completion, you can build a list of browsers and perform testing on the same.

Features Analyzed In A Web Browser Test

In order to ensure smooth functioning and compatibility across various browsers, browser testing usually examine a number of important aspects. Among these characteristics are:

• Basic Functionality: Ensuring that every interactive element—such as buttons, forms, and menus—works flawlessly and consistently across all browser versions.
• Cross-Browser Compatibility: Ensuring that web pages display and function consistently across popular browsers such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Safari, and Opera.
• Responsive Design: Testing a website's responsiveness to make sure it adjusts and displays correctly across a range of screen sizes and resolutions, including those on desktop computers, laptops, tablets, and mobile phones.
• Accessibility: Checking for compliance with accessibility standards to ensure that web content is accessible to users with disabilities across different browsers and assistive technologies.
• Performance: Assessing the performance of web pages, including page load times, responsiveness, and smoothness of animations, to ensure optimal user experience across different browsers and devices.

Types of Cross Browser Testing

There are two approaches:

• Manual Cross Browser Testing
• Automated Cross Browser Testing

Manual Cross Browser Testing

Manual Cross Browser testing is also known as live interactive testing, and it is the conventional method used for cross browser testing. Earlier, when the need for cross browser testing arose, people had only one choice: Install each browser in their system. That was when the count of browsers was few and the need for cross browser testing minimal, but now with an increase in browser number, it has become crucial.

In manual testing, browsers have to be installed on different machines against which cross browser testing is performed.This method is time-consuming and takes a lot of effort.

Automated Cross Browser Testing

Manual cross browser testing is not feasible with multiple browsers, OS, and devices on the market today. It is technically challenging to cover such a large combination manually. Therefore, automated cross browser testing is vital for all organizations who want their application to run seamlessly across platform and device combinations. Post that, automation testing tools come into the frame.

Automation tools let you perform automated browser testing in no time. It has been made possible by the cross browser testing tools available today in the market like LambdaTest. These tools allow you to test your website across 3000+ browsers and browser versions without actually installing them.

Scenario-Based Test Case Identification for Device Testing

• Device Compatibility:
• Does the website/app display correctly on various devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktops?
• Are there any specific devices or models where the website/app fails to load or function properly?
• Screen Resolution:
• How does the website/app appear on devices with different screen resolutions?
• Are all elements visible and properly aligned on both small and large screens?
• Orientation:
• Does the website/app adjust seamlessly when the device changes from portrait to landscape mode?
• Are there any layout or usability issues when switching between orientations?
• Touch vs. Mouse Input:
• Are touch-based interactions (e.g., tapping, swiping) responsive and intuitive on touchscreen devices?
• Do all functionalities work smoothly when using a mouse or trackpad on desktop computers?
• Network Conditions:
• How does the website/app perform under different network conditions, such as 3G, 4G, and Wi-Fi?
• Does the loading time increase significantly or do any features become unavailable under poor network connectivity?
• Battery Consumption:
• What is the impact of using the website/app on device battery life?
• Are there any features or processes that significantly drain the battery?
• Operating System Versions:
• Does the website/app function correctly across different versions of Android, iOS, Windows, and macOS?
• Are there any specific OS versions where performance or compatibility issues arise?
• Browser Compatibility:
• How does the website/app behave on different web browsers (e.g., Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, Opera)?
• Are there any features or functionalities that work inconsistently across browsers?
• Localization:
• Is the text displayed correctly in different languages and locales?
• Are there any issues with text alignment, readability, or functionality in specific languages?

What Are Cross Browser Issues & Its Solution?

Cross-browser testing may seem like a smooth process at first glance, but it comes with its fair share of challenges. Let's delve into some common issues faced by developers and testers during cross-browser testing and their solutions:

• Doctype Standardization:
• Issue: Failure to specify a DOCTYPE can lead to rendering inconsistencies across browsers since it has been made compulsory from the introduction of HTML5.
• Solution: Ensure the DOCTYPE declaration is the first line of your HTML document.
• Missing CSS Standards:
• Issue: Deviating from W3C CSS standards can result in cross-browser errors.
• Solution: Validate HTML and CSS code using tools like W3C HTML Validator and Jigsaw CSS Validator.
• Lack of CSS Resets:
• Issue: Default browser design layouts can interfere with custom designs.
• Solution: Implement CSS Resets like HTML5 reset or Eric Meyer's CSS reset to avoid layout discrepancies.
• Outdated Browser Support:
• Issue: Ensuring compatibility across multiple browsers and versions is challenging, availability of multiple browsers and browser versions complicates the cross browser testing.
• Solution: Detect browser, promptly upgrade if outdated, list minimum supported version.
• Responsiveness Challenges:
• Issue: Inconsistencies in rendering across different devices and screen sizes.
• Solution:Developers should prioritize website responsiveness, utilizing tools like LambdaTest for instant access to a diverse device browser cloud, facilitating thorough cross-browser testing.
• Automating Cross Browser Tests:
• Issue: Automation of cross-browser tests can be complex and time-consuming.
• Solution: Select the right cross browser testing tool that addresses your testing requirements’ core features.
• Managing Browser and OS Combinations:
• Issue: Maintaining updated cross-browser testing environments across devices presents a critical challenge, particularly without feasible in-house labs.
• Solution: Adopt parallel testing methodologies and leverage cloud-based testing platforms for scalability and efficiency.
• In-House Device Lab Setup and Maintenance:
• Issue: Establishing and maintaining an in-house device lab is cumbersome.
• Solution: Opt for cloud-based testing solutions like LambdaTest to eliminate the need for in-house infrastructure and streamline testing processes.
• Dealing with Browser Updates:
• Issue: Regular browser updates necessitate repeated testing efforts.
• Solution: Utilize cross-browser testing tools to select and test against the latest browser versions efficiently.
• Testing for Visual Discrepancies:
• Issue: Manual testing for visual inconsistencies across different resolutions is time-consuming.
• Solution: Automate visual testing using cross-browser testing tools with Selenium integration for comprehensive coverage across various screen resolutions and environments.

Cross Browser Testing Checklist

Cross-browser testing is essential to ensure that your web application or website functions correctly across different web browsers and their various versions. Here's a checklist to help you ensure thorough cross-browser testing:

• ✓ Identify Target Browsers: Determine browsers and versions for testing based on audience.
• ✓ Functional Testing: Verify all features work across browsers.
• ✓ Compatibility with Browser Versions: Test on different browser versions.
• ✓ Layout and Design Testing: Ensure consistent layout and styling.
• ✓ Responsive Design Testing: Check responsiveness on various devices.
• ✓ JavaScript Functionality: Validate JavaScript across browsers.
• ✓ HTML and CSS Validation: Validate code compliance with standards.
• ✓ Performance Testing: Measure page load times across browsers.
• ✓ Cross-Browser Bugs and Issues: Document and prioritize issues.
• ✓ Accessibility Testing: Verify accessibility features.
• ✓ Security Testing: Check for browser-specific vulnerabilities.
• ✓ Browser Extensions and Plugins: Test compatibility with common add-ons.
• ✓ Localization and Internationalization: Test language support.
• ✓ Regression Testing: Ensure fixes don't break existing functionality.
• ✓ Documentation and Reporting: Provide detailed reports for stakeholders.