Understanding Cross-Browser Testing and Its Role in Elevating Digital Experiences
Ever quit a website after being frustrated with it not responding well? From a business standpoint, instances like these are missed opportunities. Especially in a world that is now being primarily driven by digital interactions, it is important to ensure responsiveness and compatibility. This interaction happens across multiple operating systems, browsers as well as devices. This is where Cross-Browser Testing emerges as a strong factor in facilitating these interactions. Wondering how?
In this blog, we are going to answer exactly that question – what is cross-browser testing, what benefits it can offer and how it can have a direct impact on the quality of the deliverables and user experience? Let’s get started.
Why Cross-Browser Testing Matters in Today’s Digital Landscape
Since users access applications and platforms through various devices, it is a great challenge for IT service agencies, scalable software developers and testers to ensure that they perform effectively providing a flawless user experience. Cross-Browser Testing paves the way to do this and ensures that applications are enabled to function without any roadblocks regardless of the fact where they are being accessed.
There have been recent indicators in the market to substantiate this fact. It was observed that there has been a substantial reduction in customer-reported issues for some organisations. Upon diving further, it was seen that they have extensively implemented cross-browser testing in their operations. And how has this benefitted them? Well, it has helped them save a great sum of money in support costs and also reflected improved satisfaction among their users.
What is Cross-Browser Testing?
Cross-browser testing is a process that will ensure the consistent functioning of websites and applications across different devices and browsers. This will validate whether a particular website or a web application works the same way as intended and projected across multiple browsers (like Edge, Chrome, Safari, Firefox, etc) and devices like mobiles, desktops or tablets. The procedure of evaluation will look for aspects like uniformity in responsiveness, functionality, compatibility while rendering and in general the overall performance itself.
What are the Benefits of Cross-Browser Testing?
Listed below are some of the benefits offered by cross-browser testing and we will take a look at them one by one.
1. Helps Improve User Experience
Cross-browser testing will help in delivering a unified experience, irrespective of the device or the browser, thus contributing to enhanced user satisfaction. It will bring in design consistency reducing user frustration and bounce rates.
2. Leads to Reduced Customer Complaints
Inconsistency in performance across various browsers will lead to increased customer dispute and reputation damage resulting in increased cost of support. A comprehensive cross-browser testing will limit the occurrence of these issues by finding and addressing compatibility issues before the release.
3. Results in Increased Customer Retention
Satisfied users will remain loyal to the brand and product being offered. Therefore it is a non-negotiable to deliver a reliable experience across all platforms. Cross-browser testing will contribute towards building strong trust and long-term customer relationships.
4. Great for Cost-Effective Debugging
Fixing bugs after a product release can be way more expensive and time-consuming than finding and fixing them while in the development stage. Cross-browser testing will help in identifying potential issues way too early in the software lifecycle. This way you can reduce the costs and efforts that need to be invested for post-release fixes.
5. Access to Broader Audience Reach
Fixing bugs after a product release can be way more expensive and time-consuming than finding and fixing them while in the development stage. Cross-browser testing will help in identifying potential issues way too early in the software lifecycle. This way you can reduce the costs and efforts that need to be invested for post-release fixes.
6. Helps to Gain a Competitive Advantage
There can be instances where your competitor misses out on ensuring a unified experience or least prioritises compatibility issue fixes. Implementing cross-browser testing will set you apart here by making sure the functions are flawless leading to increased brand credibility and lasting impression.
7. Accelerates the Go-to-Market Time
There are many tools within cross-browser testing that come with automation features. This will accelerate the development cycle even further and you get to schedule the release ahead of its proposed timelines.
How Cross-Browser Testing Reduces Customer Issues
Let me give you an example of a SaaS company and what occurred to them. This company was getting too many complaints that their users were facing functionality issues on Safari. After this, they decided to implement automated cross-browser testing in their CI/CD pipeline. Curious about what the results turned out to be?
The testing team successfully identified that there were rendering issues with the layout on both Edge and Safari before the deployment. This fix was followed by a 25% reduction in customer complaints just within the first quarter. Support ticket numbers on issues of browser incompatibility also came down.
Tools for Effective Cross-Browser Testing
The above example also demonstrates that cross-browser testing allows for proactive issue identification. Tools like Sauce Labs, LambdaTest BrowserStack etc can assess real-world conditions across multiple devices and browsers. Let us take a look at some tools that would allow streamlining workflows to enhance test coverage
- BrowserStack
- Cloud-based testing platform for real browsers and devices.
- Allows real-time testing without maintaining a physical testing infrastructure.
- Enables both manual and automated workflows.
- Considered ideal for teams needing scalability without managing physical devices.
- Sauce Labs
- Comprehensive testing platform for web and mobile applications.
- Considered ideal for automated and manual testing of web and mobile applications.
- Comes with robust CI/CD integration for continuous testing.
- LambdaTest
- Automation testing across 3,000+ browser environments.
- Has a cloud infrastructure that allows developers to perform tests without the need for any physical setups.
- Useful for both automated and manual testing.
- Ideal for debugging and ensuring compatibility at scale.
- Selenium
- An open-source tool for automated browser testing.
- Considered best for end-to-end testing of web applications and as a customisable, cost-effective solutions for automation.
- Ideal for automating repetitive test cases.
- Helps in regression testing across browsers.
- Playwright
- It is an open-source modern end-to-end cross-browser testing framework.
- Designed for automating web interactions across all major browsers.
- Effective in handling complex testing scenarios with ease.
- It allows detailed interaction simulations and responsive testing.
Cross-Browser Testing: Delivering Excellence Across Platforms
By implementing the process of cross-browser testing, businesses can ensure that they deliver their users with consistent user experiences, with enhanced customer loyalty. At the same time, this will also help reduce operational costs as well. With the right strategies and effective use of tools like BrowserStack, Sauce Labs, and Selenium, your business can leverage the benefits of cross-browser testing for faster, more effective results. Now the ball is in your court to decide whether or not to leverage it.
The choice will not just make your product more reliable, but will also help in making your customers more loyal and towards having a strong brand reputation.
Want to explore more on what cross-browser testing can offer? Emvigo and our expert QA team are here to assist you with it. We have in store the best tools and strategies lined up for your success.
Schedule a free consultation with us today. Let us make this happen!