Once you develop your website, you want it to be functional and efficient. A vital step to ensure that is to see that it appears that way on all browsers and electronic devices. While there are only a handful of popular browsers used by the majority of the population, including Google Chrome, Safari, and Firefox, people may use many lesser-known ones.
Hence, it is crucial to check whether your website is accessible and compatible with all. Cross browser testing is the process of evaluating whether your website’s performance, design, and functionality remain consistent among them all. After doing so, it doesn’t matter which browser your user decides to choose; your website will appear the way it intended.
While this may seem like an obvious thing to do, you might be surprised to learn how many people overlook this step before publishing their website. We’ve listed the top reasons to help people understand why cross-browser testing is necessary. Be sure to check it out and ensure your website is fault-proof so that you can give your users the desired user experience!
1.To ensure base functionality
It must not be very pleasant for an individual to come to your website, only to find some essential functions are not working or working incorrectly. One of the reasons this could be happening is because they are using a browser your website is not compatible with.
To ensure this does not happen, one must perform cross-browser testing.
There are a few functions that every website must perform. This includes efficient meta descriptions, working navigation, calls to action, and readable content. When we perform cross-browser testing, it works to see if the base functionality like the ones mentioned above is consistent among all browsers. You could test to verify if all menus along with dialogue boxes are working as intended, links, when clicked, take you to the correct pages, and form fields accept inputs after checking them. Once you notice that all the functions of the website seem to be working correctly among all websites, you can be assured you have a functioning website compatible with any and all websites.
2.Design
Visuals are everything, and any website developer will tell you that the website design is what attracts as well as makes a user stay longer on the website. While you may design your website according to industry standards and keep your brand vision in mind, there really is no point if it doesn’t remain consistent among all browsers. Hence, you must do cross-browser testing to see if your design elements remain the same, regardless of whether you use Chrome or Firefox.
Read Also: What Is Cross Browser Testing And How To Perform It: A Complete Guide
These design elements include banner images, landing page images, fonts, as well as layout alignment. When you do cross-browser testing, it checks to see if there is a font size and image orientation mismatch and whether all of these elements will remain the way you intended them to. So the next time a user comes on to your page, it will look the same as you.
3.Responsiveness and Performance
Responsiveness and performance are two other factors that can be compared among various browsers when we conduct cross-browser testing. When a user comes on to your website and clicks on a call to action button, it should not only respond appropriately but do so in a short period. This may falter from one browser to the other, and hence cross-browser testing is essential. This test also checks if the design is fluid and functional while fitting effortlessly onto different screen sizes and orientations.
To ensure that your user has a seamless web experience, cross-browser testing is more than necessary. You can perform this test either using a manual method or an automated method. The former is a conventional process that involves manually installing every browser along with their latest versions to compare and check how your website performs on them. While this is one of the oldest methods, it is also time-consuming and expensive.
Instead, most people today prefer to use the automated method to conduct cross-browser testing as it is faster and requires much less effort. It involves the process of using an automated tool where you just enter your website’s name and choose the browser along with their versions and resolutions to check their consistency.
Regardless of which method you prefer to use, cross-browser testing must be conducted. After doing so, you can rest assured knowing that your website will function without a hiccup on any and every browser.