Ensuring that your applications run across multiple devices is very important. Users expect the seamless performance of the application on different devices and in differing environments. That’s why thorough cross-device testing is necessary. It helps find and fix problems like screen sizes, operating systems, browsers, and how people interact with the devices.
Cross-device testing includes different methods that help developers check their applications on many devices and operating systems.
In this blog post, let’s discuss what cross-device testing and all its methods are needed for creating a smooth and uninterrupted user experience, the challenges developers encounter when performing cross-device testing, and valuable tips to make it the best.
What is Cross Device Testing
Cross-device testing examines the application to determine its compatibility with different devices. It ensures that the website’s consistency is maintained and functionality of your website is working correctly, irrespective of the device being used.
It helps cover the responsiveness and performance across different display screen sizes, OS, browsers, and device capabilities. Developers can identify any issues arising during cross-device testing to ensure a seamless user experience for everyone.
Methods of Cross-Device Testing
Cross-device testing involves several methodologies to ensure that web applications and websites function correctly across various devices and screen sizes. Here are some methods used in Cross-Device Testing:
Responsive Design Testing
It ensures your website looks good on all devices. Here are two simple methods:
Viewport Resizing
Use Chrome DevTools or Firefox Developer Edition to simulate different device screen sizes and view how your website looks on various screens.
Responsive Design Mode
Firefox and Chrome have a special mode for testing responsive designs. This mode lets you view your webpage in different screen resolutions. You can quickly switch between device presets or set custom dimensions to ensure your site looks great everywhere.
Mobile Emulators and Simulators
Test apps and websites on different devices using mobile emulators and simulators to eliminate the need for physical hardware. Here are some popular options:
Appetize.io
Appetize.io is an online tool that offers web-based Android and iOS emulators. You can test your mobile apps directly in your browser.
Xcode iOS Simulator
This tool is included with Xcode on Mac computers. You can test iOS apps on virtual phones and iPads to see their performance on different versions and devices.
Android Virtual Device Manager
This manager is part of Android Studio and allows you to create and test on virtual Android devices. You can simulate various Android versions and device configurations to help ensure your app works well across different Android devices.
Remote Debugging
Chrome Remote Debugging
This allows you to check and work on issues with a web page on one device with screen size, such as a smartphone or a tablet. This lets you understand how your website performs well on different devices or may be optimized in real time.
Safari Remote Debugging
This lets you debug web pages on iOS devices directly from a Mac computer. After connecting your iPhone or iPad to your Mac, you can inspect and debug the web page using Safari’s developer tools. This makes it easier to resolve issues specific to iOS devices.
Testing on Real Devices
Testing on real devices ensures your application works correctly across various hardware. Here are two main methods:
Manual Testing
It involves using real devices to test your app and observe its performance across different devices. It allows you to identify issues related to screen size, responsiveness, performance, and overall user experience.
Cloud Testing Platforms
Cloud testing platforms provide access to various real devices over the internet. One such cloud testing platform is LambdaTest. It is an AI-powered test orchestration and execution platform that lets you run manual and automated tests at scale with over 3000+ real devices, browsers, and OS combinations. It allows test coordination and implementation, facilitating manual and automated testing at a large scale in the cloud with availability to more than 3000 real devices, browsers, and operating system combinations.
Here are its key offerings:
- Live interactive browser compatibility testing is enabled by it.
- It provides excellent value for money and has top-notch customer service.
- Devices are readily available.
- Assists in linking with different automation frameworks.
- LambdaTest allows testing on various browsers and devices simultaneously, increasing productivity.
- Verify that your application is responsive on various mobile devices to maintain a uniform user experience.
- Rapidly take screenshots to confirm adaptability and detect any visual problems.
LambdaTest lets you test your application on different devices without the hardware. You can choose from numerous devices with other operating systems and screen sizes.
This approach makes ensuring your application functions correctly across all different setups easier. It’s helpful for large-scale testing and can save time and resources compared to owning and handling many physical devices.
You can ensure thorough testing and improve the user experience for all your users by combining manual testing with cloud testing platforms that support different devices.
Automated Testing
Automated testing helps you efficiently check your applications by using scripts to perform tests. Here are two popular tools:
Selenium
Selenium is an automation tool that can be used to assess web applications. You can write scripts in multiple languages. Selenium can interact with web pages by clicking buttons, filling out forms, and checking content. It’s useful for quickly finding and fixing issues in web applications.
Appium
It is a free tool that automates testing for mobile apps. It works with native, mobile web, and hybrid applications on both iOS and Android devices. You can write tests in many programming languages.
Browser Extensions and Plugins
Browser extensions and plugins can help you test how your website appears and behaves on different devices. Here are two valuable tools:
User-Agent Switcher
It is an extension that enables users to alter the details stated by the browser in the user-agent string or when it presents the details to some websites. This allows a person to check on how the site looks and how it will perform on various devices.
Mobile Browser Emulators
Mobile browser emulators like the Ripple emulator for Chrome let you test mobile web applications in your desktop browser. These emulators mimic the behavior and appearance of mobile browsers to see how your website will perform on different mobile devices.
Challenges in Cross-Device Testing
Cross-device testing presents several challenges that developers and QA teams must address to ensure a smooth user experience across various devices and platforms.
Fragmentation
Fragmentation means different devices have varying screen sizes, resolutions, and shapes. This makes it challenging for developers to ensure websites and apps display correctly on all devices.
Testing for fragmentation involves verifying how the website or application responds to different screen configurations. Developers must ensure that content is appropriately scaled and laid out to accommodate various screen sizes. Responsive design principles are crucial in addressing fragmentation, allowing websites to adapt dynamically to different screen dimensions.
Performance Differences
Devices vary significantly in processing power, memory, and hardware capabilities, which can impact the performance of websites and applications. These differences affect load times, responsiveness, and overall user experience. Testing across various devices helps identify performance issues and optimize resource components.
Performance testing tools allow developers to quantify the speed at which websites and applications load and perform on multiple devices. This testing helps identify that the application works perfectly on different configurations to give the user a good experience.
Performance optimization is the process of reducing resource wastage and working on efficient ways of presenting the code and the content to end users. Developers can increase the speed and interactivity of their applications, which can significantly influence user satisfaction, by identifying differences in performance during testing.
Operating System Versions
Operating system versions vary among devices, which can lead to compatibility issues affecting websites and applications’ performance and functionality. Older or newer OS versions may cause websites to behave differently or encounter bugs not present on other versions.
Testing has to be conducted across the different operation system levels to test the application for compatibility across many users effectively. This way, the developers can know that their applications have compatibility issues with some types of OS versions and can unite to solve them in phases before finalizing.
This process involves testing different versions of major operating systems. It helps developers verify that the website or application is compatible with each OS version’s unique features and limitations to enhance usability and customer satisfaction.
Browser Differences
Each browser interprets the same website differently because it has its rendering engine and treatment of web standards. This can result in differences in how a website and its content are displayed and interact with the users across different browsers and various versions of the same.
Cross-browser testing is crucial to ensure consistent functionality and appearance across various browsers. Developers use specialized tools and techniques to identify and address these rendering discrepancies. Developers can fix their websites to work on several popular browsers.
When conducting cross-browser testing, developers look for layout, styling, and functionality problems that might occur due to the differences in how browsers render the HTML, CSS, and JS. This approach assists in providing a smooth user experience.
Input Methods
Users interact with devices using touchscreens, mice, and keyboards. Each method can affect how users navigate and use a website or app.
Testing these interactions ensures the user interface works with all input methods for a smooth experience. For instance, websites should support touch on mobiles, clicks on desktops, and keyboard inputs on all devices.
During testing, developers ensure all input methods work well and users can efficiently perform actions. This involves testing navigation, forms, buttons, and other interactive parts. Ensuring these work with different input methods improves usability and accessibility for all users.
Best Practices to Overcome Challenges
Ensure your application works well on all devices, operating systems, and browsers by following these best practices:
- Implement responsive design for different screen sizes.
- Use emulators and simulators to test virtual devices.
- Use remote debugging for real devices or simulators.
- Conduct manual testing on various real devices to validate performance and identify device-specific issues.
- Measure and optimize your application’s performance across devices with varying hardware capabilities.
- Keep your testing tools and environments updated for the latest devices and browsers.
Conclusion
In conclusion, testing your website or app on different devices, operating systems, and browsers is essential. Techniques like responsive design testing, mobile emulators, remote debugging, physical testing on real devices, automated testing, and browser extensions and plugins help developers find and fix issues affecting how users experience your product.
Challenges like device types, performance differences, compatibility issues with operating systems and browsers, and various input methods must be addressed for smooth functionality. Following best practices and testing thoroughly across different platforms ensures your product meets user expectations and works well on any device. Prioritizing cross-device testing improves accessibility, usability, and satisfaction, making your application more successful and widely used.
