This technological era is well known as the era of the Internet of Things. Here, you need to access the internet now and then. Today, internet users prefer using mobile devices to access the internet. This is because mobile devices are portable, easily accessible, and are more user-friendly. Also, among all the mobile devices, smartphones are used the most. This clearly shows the necessity of developing a seamless, mobile-friendly website. Therefore, to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of the website on mobile devices, mobile website testing is crucial.
Mobile devices are of various forms. It has distinctive screen sizes, operating systems, user interfaces, processors, and resolutions and supports network technologies. This difference makes it complex for testers and developers to conduct mobile website testing. However, utilizing several advanced tools and techniques can simplify the testing process. Also, setting up all mobile devices for mobile website testing is not feasible.
In this article, you will dive into mobile website testing. The main focus here will be on the advanced tools and techniques that can be used for conducting mobile website testing. Also, you will learn about various challenges during mobile device testing. These challenges will help you understand where to pay more attention during mobile website testing. So let’s get started.
Understanding Mobile Website Testing
Mobile website testing refers to the seamless examination of the website’s functionality. Along with the functionality, the website’s usability, compatibility, and performance are also measured across multiple devices. Mobile website testing is encouraged by large businesses and organizations as it guarantees an excellent user experience. A good user experience further increases the website’s audience.
Mobile website testing discovers and fixes the bugs and other issues that affect websites. Bugs can lead to malfunctioning websites. Also, the performance and user experience are affected. This may reduce the overall engagement of the website. The loss of an audience ultimately causes the loss of the organization. Therefore, overlooking the mobile website testing is not accepted.
Mobile website testing comprises several testing techniques. It includes compatibility testing to ensure consistency in the website across every device and platform. Responsive design testing is responsible for the website’s responsiveness. This means the website must adapt to every screen size. Functionality testing looks at the correctness of the navigation and features. Mobile website testing also comprises performance testing that evaluates the website’s speed and usability testing to provide a seamless user experience. Furthermore, cross-browser testing, network condition testing, and regression testing are also done under mobile website testing.
Advanced Tools for Mobile Website Testing
Testing a mobile website is a complex task for testers and developers. Due to the diverse range of mobile devices, it requires time, effort, and attention. However, utilizing certain advanced tools can simplify the test process. Here are a few of them.
- LambdaTest
LambdaTest is a popular mobile website testing tool. It is powered by Artificial intelligence. LambdaTest is a platform with an approximation of 3000 real devices, browsers, and operating systems. The platform lets you execute mobile website testing both in manual and automated form. Also, LambdaTest supports multiple test automation frameworks that allow simultaneous execution of test cases. This increases the test coverage. Test automation frameworks also reduce the need for human intervention and eliminate extra development time.
- Selenium
Selenium is currently the most widely used and popular mobile website testing solution. It is one of the best website testing tools and supports various operating systems and popular browsers. It enables you to ensure the correct functioning of the website. It can even record and playback the test execution to handle test failures easily. Testers and developers can use their preferred programming language to perform mobile website testing through Selenium. Also, Selenium has various components, such as a Selenium WebDriver, that lets you automate a robust test script.
- Playwright
Playwright is an open-source mobile website testing framework developed by Microsoft. This allows developers and testers to automate the testing of websites across different mobile devices and browsers. It provides a suitable API for interacting with web browsers and allows for easy cross-browser testing. Playwright testing is possible using JavaScript, TypeScript, and NodeJS. It lets you resolve issues with the help of detailed logs, video recordings, and screenshots of test execution. Playwright testing also offers responsive design testing, essential for mobile website testing. This is because mobile websites have different viewports.
- GhostLab
Another tool for performing efficient mobile website testing is Ghostlab. It lets you execute the test and debug the mobile website on multiple devices simultaneously. It is also beneficial in providing a consistent user experience. When testing through GhostLab, the mobile website functions smoothly across all device and browser combinations. Also, you may analyze your mobile website and debug it remotely.
- LoadRunner
LoadRunner is another robust mobile website testing tool. it helps businesses to enhance their website’s test performance, scalability, and reliability. LoadRunner lets you simulate real user traffic, identify performance bottlenecks, and measure response times. It offers a wide range of testing features such as load testing, stress testing, and durability testing to ensure that your website can handle high user loads and peak traffic. Through LoadRunner, you can easily identify performance degradation issues of the website. It can also identify the problem of memory leaks and resource utilization. Moreover, LoadRunner is known for its detailed report and analysis features.
- TestCafe
TestCafe is also a mobile website testing tool. It is capable of facilitating and improving the mobile website testing process. TestCafe allows you to write reliable tests in TypeScript or JavaScript and run them on various devices and browsers. It eliminates the need for browser plugins and provides automatic waiting, intelligent assertions, and other features that ensure accurate and effective test execution. It also supports parallel test execution, remote device testing, and easy integration with popular test frameworks and CI/CD tools.
Advanced Techniques for Mobile Website Testing
Using advanced tools for mobile website testing is not enough. You also need to know certain advanced techniques for efficient and effective testing. Here are a few of them.
- LT Browser For Responsive Testing
LT Browser is an excellent platform to test your website across various mobile devices. It is an especially designed developer-oriented browser that lets you perform responsive testing for mobile websites. The platform has over 50 device resolutions for testing mobile websites on different screen sizes. It can build, test, and debug mobile websites. The LT Browser has various features that make it the best mobile website testing tool. This also allows you to perform live interactive testing. This lets you see how responsive the website is on different devices.
- Use iOS and Android Emulator
Using software emulators is an advanced technique to test your website’s appearance on mobile devices. Emulators allow you to run websites exactly as the original device would. It will enable you to see the differences between cloned systems. iOS and Android emulators are specifically designed to test native apps. However, they can also be used to test mobile versions of websites in your default browser. This allows you to get a good estimate of how your website will look in the embedded browser. The rendering engine can also help you find website compatibility and cross-browser issues.
- Use Browser Tool- Responsinator
If you want to perform responsive testing of your web app on different screen resolutions, you can use browser tools such as Responsinator. It’s free and perfect for testing the layout of your web app. Responsinator allows you to resize your website to a specific size. Also, you can analyze the appearance of your website on multiple devices and screen sizes. Using a Responsinator is a good technique to verify and validate a website. However, it uses the same rendering engine as mobile browsers, so it’s not as good as testing your website on a real device or using a simulator.
- Test On Real Devices
Test your mobile website on a real device for effective and efficient testing. This is because the user experience of websites often cannot be tested using emulators or developer tools. In addition, websites include many factors, such as pixel density, various network conditions, and actual page load speed and time. And all these factors can be efficiently tested on real devices. Manually testing web apps on all devices is not easy as it requires investment, resources, and time. However, you may choose a mobile device test suite with the most popular mobile web browsers. This will give you the exact results you’re looking for. You can choose automated mobile testing tools if you’re unsatisfied with mobile device testing suites. These tools are designed to test your web apps on multiple smartphones and browsers.
- Validate the HTML and CSS Code.
To analyze your mobile website’s functionality across platforms, it is recommended to validate your website’s HTML and CSS code. You can use tools such as W3C MobileOK Checker to validate your HTML and CSS. These are open-source web-based verification tools. It allows you to test website compatibility on all mobile devices. It also provides several test scenarios to check the usability of your website. Another option is Google Chrome developer tools. This is used to resolve minor HTML and CSS issues on your website. This utility lets you quickly test your website’s behavior on different screen sizes, loading times, and network adjustments.
Conclusion
Mobile website testing ensures a seamless user experience. It tests websites across different mobile devices and platforms. Advanced tools and techniques act as a boon in the testing process. It helps testers and developers find issues in the website. These issues can hamper a website’s performance, compatibility, and usability. Using tools like remote test labs, responsive design testing tools, automated testing frameworks, and performance analysis tools, developers and their QA professionals can thoroughly assess mobile websites and proactively address issues. Additionally, mobile website testing comprises accessibility and network health testing for a better validation of the website. There are also cloud testing platforms like LambdaTest that can mimic real devices for effective website testing.
LambdaTest is a comprehensive test orchestration and execution platform that leverages artificial intelligence to facilitate the seamless and efficient running of manual and automated tests on a large scale. With a focus on providing a versatile testing environment, LambdaTest empowers users to conduct real-time and automated testing across an extensive array of environments, encompassing over 3000 configurations, including browsers and real mobile devices.
