With mobile and web applications becoming so popular, organisations are focusing towards mobile application testing to provide seamless user experience to their customers. But due to the frequently updating features of the mobile devices , browsers and OS, it has become challenging to develop compatible mobile and web applications. Now, cross browser testing is the solution that every QA team is after and consistently finding ways to improve it. They need a solution which is faster, qualitative and convenient. Here cloud testing platforms come into the picture. But before exploring deep into the factors that make cross browser testing more effective in cloud platforms let’s understand what cross browser testing is.
What is Cross browser testing ?
One of the most common challenges while testing mobile or web apps is device fragmentation. Device fragmentation happens when a set of users using an old browser version experience bad performance in their app while the other set of users using the new browser version experience seamless performance of the app. This uneven performance happens due to the app being incompatible with the entire range of the browser versions. Hence for building more compatible apps, we need to test different device browser and os combinations. Here cross browser testing comes into the picture. In cross browser testing various combinations of device browser and os are tested. With tools like selenium webdriver which allows testing multiple browsers together, the speed of testing increases by multi-folds. Hence cross browser testing enables parallel testing with multiple device browser and os combinations to be tested simultaneously with the application under test.
Why Cloud platforms for Cross browser testing
Highly Scalable
As we know that in cross browser testing we have to test multiple device browser and OS combinations together, we need a testing platform which allows parallel testing as well as a highly scalable platform. As device versions are also frequently updating we need a platform which can add or remove devices easily. It also helps in reducing the cost as we can add only those number of devices required for a projecta and remove the rest. For example if a new iphone gets released and you want to make sure that your application is compatible with this new device version then you need to add this device and perform the cross browser testing! In cloud platforms you can easily add or remove the devices as per the project requirement. Hence cloud platforms are the best for cross browser testing.
Supports Automation
Cross browser test cases are huge in number due to multiple device browser combinations. Also, cross browser testing is redundant in nature. Hence it’s very difficult to manually perform cross browser testing. With automation tools like Selenium web driver, we can cross browser test the application with several browsers and devices simultaneously. The combination of automation testing and parallel testing, increases the speed of testing by multi-folds. It’s convenient to perform automation testing in cloud platforms because it supports integration of multiple automation tools seamlessly, is highly scalable because of being virtual, supports parallel testing, provides an extremely adaptive environment for automation testing etc. Hence cloud platforms support automation which is the driving force for cross browser test cases.
Supports multiple integrations
Cloud platforms support multiple integrations like the several automation tools like appium, selenium, robotium etc, performance testing tools like Jmeter, ci/cd tools like Jenkins, Bamboo etc and collaborative tools like Jira, Github, Slack etc. Due to these number of tools and the flexibility that cloud platforms offer to support any kind of pipeline e.g. ci/cd integration, makes cross browser testing very simple and easy. Hence multiple integration of tools in cloud platforms make cross browser testing very easy to achieve.
Highly Accessible
With complex testing processes like cross browser testing, the QA teams require to go that extra mile and should be availed of flexible working hours to hit the bull’s eye. So cross browser testing in cloud platforms which are highly accessible is a treat for QA teams. They are not limited to any time boundaries, or location boundaries and can perform testing at any point of time from anywhere and at any time! There are many cloud based cross browser testing tools available in the market which can give you the benefit of maintaining the business continuity during odd times like pandemic , geographically separated teams, flexible working hours etc.
Highly Collaborative
Cloud platforms support highly collaborative tools like Jira, Github, Slack etc which allows the teams to organise a meeting, sharing of reports, sharing screen , video calling etc. Cross browser testing becomes extremely easy and quick when several teams work together. The testing and development tasks can be started together, the QA teams can point out the potential bugs to the development team even before they start scripting to make their work way better, or even the testing can be done by developers and get the job done quicker. Hence collaboration is the key for cross browser testing which becomes highly possible with cloud testing platforms.
Conclusion
Most of the organizations want to adopt cross browser testing because it not only solves the compatibility issues but also enhances the user experience of the web application. The brands want to have a technical solution which is faster, qualitative and convenient. Hence cloud platforms are being opted as they provide speed@quality for cross browser testing. So do refer the guide above explaining the key benefits of leveraging a cloud based testing platform for cross browser testing.
