Today, multiple devices are present all over the globe. In this advanced technological era, almost everyone uses devices. Here, we will talk about devices used to access content and services. So, all over the globe, we have various users who use different devices according to their specifications to access a website or a software application. Therefore, checking that the software application works seamlessly across every device is important. Testers prefer conducting cross-device testing to ensure a software application’s seamlessness and consistent behavior across every device and platform.
With the evolution of technology, users are not dependent on desktop devices to access a website or a software application. They can easily access the software application from any device of their choice. The device may be a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or a traditional desktop. Therefore, testers need cross-device testing to ensure the flawless functioning of the software applications irrespective of the device used to provide an excellent user experience and target the maximum audience.
The devices may have different screen sizes and resolutions. It may also have a diverse operating system and browser. Therefore, it becomes a challenge for testers to test for every combination. Cross-device testing allows testers to overcome difficulties. In this article, you will learn several advanced techniques for cross-device testing. It empowers testers and developers to develop a seamless software application that works well across every device.
What is Cross-device Testing?
Cross-device testing is a procedure for approving the usefulness and execution of software applications on different types of devices, such as smartphones and tablets. This is done to guarantee an ideal user experience when utilizing the software application, regardless of the device utilized. Cross-device testing takes a variety of considerations into account. It includes several factors such as screen size, resolution, device type, operating system type, and differences in operating system versions. Testing on numerous devices lets you recognize compatibility issues early in software development and guarantees fast resolution.
We all know software applications can look different because devices have different screen sizes and resolutions. Cross-device testing helps ensure that the layout and content of your software application display correctly on screens of different resolutions and sizes. Cross-device testing also evaluates the performance of software applications on different devices. This includes considerations for processing power, storage, and network conditions. Cross-device testing tests the compatibility of software applications with different operating systems, such as iOS or Android. Touchscreens, keyboards, and other devices have a variety of input methods. Cross-device testing considers these input methods and checks whether the software application under test behaves correctly with different input methods.
Need for Cross-device Testing
With the rapid growth of the global smartphone market, it is necessary to test your web applications on popular devices before delivering them to the market. There are distinctive mobile devices on the market with different screen sizes, resolutions, operating systems (Windows, iOS, Android, Linux), operating system versions, browsers, memory, processors, and more. Testing web apps under such a large device umbrella is also difficult. However, cross-device testing has become an urgent need for companies looking to deploy promising software applications to increase their customer base.
A website or mobile app is developed and unit-tested by a developer on a small number of limited devices. However, it is the tester’s responsibility to ensure that it works as expected, at least on common and widely used devices available on the market. Therefore, testing on suitable mobile devices is very important for a website’s cross-device compatibility. Testers usually prefer a cloud-based platform rather than an actual device setup for testing software applications on multiple devices.
Websites are created using various technologies such as HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and PHP. Each browser has a different engine for rendering HTML pages. Through cross-device testing, testers must ensure that the functionality and user experience are the same, even if the interface may differ.
Advanced Techniques for Seamless Compatibility
To achieve seamless compatibility across multiple devices, you must follow several advanced techniques while performing cross-device testing. Here are a few of them.
- Responsive Design Testing
Responsive design testing ensures that your users get the best experience on your website, regardless of their device. We also aim to ensure a seamless experience across different digital devices. Responsive design testing plays an important role at every stage of development. It ensures all the requirements of end-users are satisfied. It also ensures that your website’s content is available to all visitors. Content validation is also performed on mobile phones with different screen sizes, operating systems, and browsers. This ensures that your website loads at the same speed on different devices and browsers, so your users aren’t frustrated by lag or content timing out. Responsive design testing tests whether images and videos of all types display as expected on different mobile phones, browsers, and more.
- Physical Device Testing
Physical device testing accurately assesses performance and behavior. By choosing the right combination of devices, operating systems, and screen sizes with your target users in mind, you can build a device lab with physical devices to perform cross-device testing. With so many device models on the market, choosing the newest or most popular device to test your application is not always a good idea. Device selection should be based on the demographic characteristics of your target users and the types of devices they prefer. Mobile device operating systems, screen resolutions, and screen sizes must also be considered, and a variety of devices with widely used combinations of operating systems, screen resolutions, and screen sizes should be selected for testing.
- Cloud-based Testing Services
You are well aware that hundreds of devices are available in the market. You must test your software application with every device available for effective testing. This is not feasible, as testing on every device requires ample time and effort. Also, we need a device setup, which will not be cost-effective. To overcome this problem, testers use cloud-based testing services. Cloud-based testing services like LambdaTest provide users with remote access to all their devices. This eliminates the need for actual and physical device setups.
LambdaTest is an AI-powered test orchestration and execution platform that runs manual and automated tests at scale. The platform allows you to perform both real-time and automation testing across 3000+ environments and real mobile devices.
- Automated Testing
Automated Testing leverages automation tools to perform cross-device testing, ensuring efficiency, scalability, and reusability provided by accelerated product testing frameworks and testing platforms. However, creating an effective test plan requires a combination of manual and automated testing, depending on the type and complexity of the test scenario. Cross-device testing requires time and effort, which increases development time. Automated testing can seamlessly test software applications in reduced time and effort.
- Visual Regression Testing
Visual regression testing aims to identify undesirable changes in the user interface (UI) between the current version of a software application and previously built versions on different devices. Unlike traditional UI verification capabilities, it uses visual tests to specifically inspect visual elements within an application. This is accomplished by taking screenshots of her webpage before and after each change. Then split these screenshots into pixels to see differences in layout, style, or visual elements.
- Localization and Internationalization Testing
Cross-device testing must include localization and internationalization testing. This will ensure your software application can be accessed globally through any device. It will ensure your software application supports various languages and is suitable for different regions and cultures. You need to test with different language settings, date formats, currencies, and text orientations for localization and internationalization testing. Localization and internationalization testing guarantee a seamless user experience of the software application on any device worldwide.
- Accessibility Testing
Accessibility testing in cross-device testing will ensure that web and mobile applications can be used by all people, including people with disabilities such as visual impairments, hearing impairments, and various physical and cognitive illnesses. These tests focus on maintaining standards and providing an inclusive user experience for everyone across every device. In accessibility testing, the tester specifies failures to test the entire software or individual components.
- Continuous Integration and Deployment
There are numerous devices available in the market. Several new devices and versions of existing devices are frequently launched into the market. Therefore, the test scripts need to be regularly updated to ensure the compatibility of the software application with the new devices. Integrating a CI/CD pipeline into your cross-device testing will automate and continuously test your software application with every change.
Challenges with Cross-device Testing
While performing cross-device testing, testers and developers have to face various challenges. Here is a list of them.
- Testing a software application on every device is time-consuming and challenging.
- Every browser behaves differently on different devices. Every browser interprets a software application differently. Therefore, ensuring the consistent behavior of software applications across multiple devices and browser combinations is challenging.
- Also, we have multiple operating systems. Each operating system has its capabilities and limitations. Therefore, it is essential to test across different operating systems.
- The user may access software applications from anywhere around the globe. Every region has different network conditions. Therefore, cross-device testing needs to be conducted under various network conditions.
- Also, different regions have different languages, time zones, text orientations, etc. Therefore, proper testing is required to ensure a seamless user experience across the globe.
You should keep these challenges in mind while conducting cross-device testing. This will help in effective and efficient cross-device testing.
Best Practices for Cross-device Testing
To overcome the challenges of cross-device testing, you must follow certain best practices. Here is a list of them.
- Create a comprehensive test plan
- Utilize responsive web design
- Perform browser compatibility testing
- Conduct performance testing across multiple devices
- Perform touch and gesture testing for mobile devices
- Test across various screen resolutions
- Use automated testing tools
- Go for accessibility, user feedback, and beta testing.
- Regularly update and maintain your test scripts.
Conclusion
Cross-device testing is an important aspect of software development. It ensures a consistent and positive user experience across different devices and platforms. By implementing the techniques mentioned in the article, developers can identify and fix issues early in development. Also, the challenges and best practices will help you with adequate testing, It will result in websites that work best across various devices and screen sizes and satisfy users. A thorough and adaptable testing approach is key to meeting the challenges of an ever-evolving digital environment.
