The How’s and Why’s of Cross Browser Testing

The whopping number of browsers and their versions getting updated yearly is merely a nightmare for website developers. As developers need to know what browser their customers would be using, web-browser compatibility issues are bound to occur. Here cross-browser testing comes into the picture. 

As every browser has its engine and an OS platform (as per the source), developing an application compatible with various browsers becomes challenging. Though cross-browser testing is the aid in dealing with the compatibility issues between browsers and web/mobile applications, multiple situations contribute to the complexity of cross-browser testing. Situations like regular browser updates and overwhelming combinations of os-browsers to test and maintain the cross-browser testing infrastructure add to the complexity of cross-browser testing. 

In this article, we will learn what Cross browser testing is in detail and understand its importance. We will also dig into the challenges of cross-browser testing and the counter strategies to make it simple and seamless.

What is Cross browser testing? 

Websites are either made from CSS/HTML/Bootstrap etc., consisting of various components, and a browser’s relationship with these components depends on browser to browser. For instance, CSS can act entirely differently in the Google Chrome browser than in Firefox. Design elements can also vary in size across different browsers.  

Cross-browser testing aims at ensuring the components work seamlessly across all browsers. It ensures that HTML, CSS, Applets, JavaScript, AJAX requests, Flash, and web design elements all look and behave as intended on every browser type. The goal of cross-browser testing is to ensure that all the bugs are detected that might prevent a site from displaying or functioning properly across various platforms, devices, browsers and their versions. 

Why Is Cross-Browser Testing Important?

Cross-browser testing is responsible for delivering the best user experience. It addresses many pitfalls a website offers before deploying it to production. 

For example, looking at various browsers, each has a unique technology running in the backend to render websites. Cross-browser testing provides a solution to this complex situation. It calls for changes in the site’s code to help it adapt to different browsers. Additionally, If you are implementing a robust test automation framework for cross-browser testing, it enables identifying the bugs earlier so that resolution is provided on time. 

The typical cross-browser testing issues are:

• Unique javascript implementation for each browser
• Missing CSS resets
• Font size and image orientation mismatch
• Very few browsers support HTML5
• Inconsistent page alignment
• Layout incompatibility with browser
• Mismatches in frameworks or library versions

As we have identified the typical issues resolved by cross-browser testing, let’s also discuss some major issues in detail to help understand the importance of cross-browser testing better:

For seamless user experience (UX): With a wide range of browsers, devices, os and their versions available today, cross-browser testing is a crucial part of developing software. Cross-browser testing ensures that the website behaves uniformly across all browsers so that users can have consistent behavior and experience across all browsers, devices, and platforms. 

Applications work differently on different browsers:  Different client components in a website yield different results on the website they are running in. For, eg. Apple Safari’s text-to-speech will work well only in MacOS.

CSS styles render differently in each browser 

CSS styles can render differently in different browsers. What might be working correctly on Microsoft Edge might not run seamlessly on Google Chrome. This issue can be addressed through cross-browser testing.

Different technologies used in building the world wide web

All website technologies, from JavaScript to HTML, have undergone major changes since they were first introduced. The introduction of new libraries and frameworks like HTML, XML, JSON, jQuery, ReactJS, etc. and continuous improvements in them over the years has caused the website configurations to change, which has increased the demand for cross-browser testing more than before. 

Cut-throat Competition

Cross-browser testing ensures a good user experience; you must pay attention to this to catch up to your competitors. To stay within your customers’ expectations, better take cross-browser testing more seriously. 

These points justify the importance of cross-browser testing. 

Critical Measures Involved in Cross-Browser Testing

Before the website is deployed to the production cycle, certain measures must be taken. When it comes to Cross browser testing, there is much more than just visual verification of a website. Critical unseen functionality and browser-related business logic surrounding server-side and client-side code can become a hurdle to the seamless functioning of a website. So make sure that your cross-browser testing project goes through the following steps: 

Validation of code: Ensure crucial website elements like CSS and Javascript validate completely across all target browsers.

Verification of the UI: ensure that all aspects of the user interface closely align with the specifications and requirements from the client side. 

Consistency in Operations: Verify that operation is consistent throughout all popups and pages. This includes tabs, panels, links, and navigation menus.

Validate browser performance: Keep a close eye on variances in some browsers regarding user interface or processing performance.

Test for mobile consistency: Do you see non-uniformity in display across your target range of mobile browsers? It’s important to validate for consistency and uniformity regarding resolution and orientation.

Does Cross-Browser Testing Matter in Every Product Release Cycle?

Due to the frequent browser updates, it’s recommended to conduct cross-browser testing for every release cycle. Every 8-12 weeks, a new browser version gets released for different users. Browser updates come with new features, quirks and bugs. Additionally, short release cycles and automatic updates have proved that no major web browser is static software. 

Another important point is that browser vendors tend to seed their updates on varying schedules. Hence in case you are targeting more than one browser, it’s essential to reconduct cross-browser testing every 8-10 weeks. Hence to attain wider compatibility, cross-browser testing must be done as and when required, especially during every product release cycle. 

Conclusion: From the above discussion, it’s clear that cross-browser testing is a simple process involving too much to handle complicated situations. Hence a comprehensive testing system is required to navigate through these complexities seamlessly. A cloud-based test automation tool involves a simple setup, eliminating the infrastructural hassle of constructing a physical setup for cross-browser testing. Its highly scalable properties, including support for multiple integrations, simplify cross-browser testing. Hence, a robust cloud-based test automation tool is highly recommended for cross-browser testing.