Cross-browser testing verifies that a website or web application functions and appears appropriately across several browsers and platforms. With each browser manufacturer having a unique view of how a browser should operate, it’s only possible to guarantee that your site works well with a wide variety of browsers using cross browser testing automation tools.
Cross-Browser Testing – What is it?
A website is composed of several components, and each browser’s relationship with these components differs. For example, CSS might behave entirely differently in Mozilla Firefox than it does in Google Chrome. Additionally, design components might vary in size among browsers.
Cross-browser testing ensures that these components work flawlessly across all supported browser versions. You may use it to guarantee that HTML, JavaScript, Applets, AJAX requests, Flash, and web design components display and act correctly across all browser types.
Cross-browser testing’s primary purpose is to ensure consistency by enabling testers to identify problems that may prevent a site from showing or operating correctly across a range of screen sizes and browsers.
What is the Importance of Cross-Browser Testing?
Although it is a significant time sink for QA and professional developers, cross-browser testing is critical for providing the best possible user experience. As per Statista, 13% of respondents reported using the Opera browser to test their web applications in 2018.
Currently, when you compare multiple browsers, you’ll see that each one uses a different backend technology to render webpages. Cross-browser testing takes into consideration the distinctions between these technologies.
It requires modifications to the site’s code to enable it to adapt to different browsers. Additionally, it assists designers and developers in identifying faults that should be addressed immediately upon discovery.
Typical cross-browser compatibility concerns include the following:
- JavaScript implementations vary.
- CSS resets that have been missed.
- A mismatch between font size and picture orientation.
- HTML5 is not supported.
- Inconsistent alignment of pages.
- Incompatibility of the layout with the browser.
- Incompatibilities across frameworks or library versions, and more.
Cross-browser testing enables you to fix these and other issues before to formally releasing your website or web application.
Manual Testing
As the name implies, manual cross-browser testing is the practice of manually testing web apps without automated tools or scripts.
It’s a straightforward process for validating a feature’s functioning against business requirements and reporting software bugs/defects. Manual testing needs a significant amount of human labor.
Manual cross-browser testing requires testers to develop test cases and execute them manually. This is a lengthy and laborious process. Therefore, if we want to test a significant amount of functionality on the web across, say, 50 different web browsers, devices, and operating systems, manual browser testing is not the optimal way.
Automated Testing
Cross-browser testing via automation is more viable and efficient than human cross browser testing. A cross-browser automated testing tool can generate automated test scripts, execute the tests, and compare the expected performance.
Though the procedure is entirely automated, the initial test scripts are created manually. These scripts may then be used to execute many tests across several browsers.
The fundamental objective of automated browser testing is to finish the cross-browser testing procedure in the shortest amount of time possible.
When Should We Do Manual Browser Testing?
Each sophisticated skill or technology used in the software business offers several benefits and drawbacks. Along with its many advantages, automated browser testing has certain limits for testing specific situations.
The testing team must evaluate the constraints and problems of automated testing to determine when manual testing may be used. There may be several times when automation is available in an application, but it will be challenging to script. Under this scenario, manual browser testing is preferable.
Moreover, even with the most excellent automated testing tools and experience in writing automated test scripts, some modules in the program will not be automatable. CAPTCHAs, often used on e-commerce websites, cannot be automated (and should not be). As a result, manual browser testing is more appropriate in this case.
Complex functions in an application need the tester to delve deep and research the module, which demands a significant amount of time for scripting, which is why manual testing is the optimal technique in this case.
Manual testing may also be used to execute test cases involving UI (user interface) validations. Manual browser testing may be used to identify edge situations and conduct negative testing to understand your application better.
When evaluating the ROI, manual browser testing is preferable if the money invested in automation is not justified by the results obtained from tests.
Why Should you Opt for Automated Browser Testing?
Manual application testing is a significant challenge in the software business. One must develop specific tests for various combinations. Moreover, evaluating each variety is not only time demanding but also does not provide enough test coverage.
Since the introduction of automation, human effort in evaluating web applications has been cut by more than 70%. The remaining 30% of the effort is necessary to choose an efficient automation testing solution, write the initial test scripts, and then execute the tests using those automated scripts.
