This is often used for testing on mobile devices, as it means the developer can see their changes as they make them. Software is used to make an approximation of the target device or machine to show you how something ‘should’ look. Some of the methods available are: Emulation When this happens, there are a number of options as to how to test. However in practice it’s not always possible, or cost-effective, to have every variation available to test on. Ideally, it is best to view these on machines with the same configuration as the end user. This may be just the two main browsers on a Windows desktop, or a variety of platforms such as an Apple Macbook, an Android phone, or Firefox on a Windows tablet. How do I conduct effective cross-device testing?įor the reasons above, when developing or testing a website it is important to view it in as many of the different browsers that the end user may use as possible. Additionally, if the client can provide their own usage analytics, the specifications can be narrowed down even further. For instance gives up-to-date statistics of market share for OS, browser usage and even what screen size is being used to view pages. There are many tools that can be used to gauge which configurations are most popular. As screens can come in almost any size, often a maximum and minimum are chosen. To make sure the testing covers the highest number of potential users, often the most common browsers, operating systems, and screen sizes will be used for example Windows or Mac as the most common operating systems, and Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer (for Windows) or Safari (for Mac) as the most popular browsers. For this reason it is often beneficial to go for a more comprehensive set of tests. Products such as a website that will be viewed by members of the public, however, can and will be viewed in any number of ways, on any number of devices. This could be the case if we’re developing a mobile app where the user will have a specific device on which the app will be installed for example, when workers outside of the office all use the same tablet to record information. These are straightforward, and can be tested according to the exact specifications to ensure what we test is exactly what the customer will see. Sometimes this comes in the form of a single browser, being used on one OS with a standard screen size. This means restricting testing to the most appropriate specifications for each individual project. We can’t test all configurations, so we need to make sure we test as many useful variations as possible to cover the largest pool of users that time and budget permits. How do I choose what devices to test on?Īs there is an overwhelming combination of screen sizes, devices, Operating Systems (OS) and browsers to choose from, and usually limited time and resource to test, it is important to start by establishing the intended range of configurations that need to be supported. This is especially common with more complex websites that use non-standard HTML tags, or complex CSS. (For more information on web browser engines, see this Wikipedia page.)īecause the browsers use these different engines to render a web page, occasionally the end result can appear differently depending on which browser you are using. The most popular browsers and the engines they use The difference in the browsers comes from how this engine handles what the website gives it. Due to this, extra features are added or refined on top of the HTML standard meaning that each browser potentially deals with the same HTML in a different way.Įach of the browsers uses a rendering engine (sometimes called a layout engine) to tell the browsers how to handle the HTML. There is a huge amount of competition in the browser market (and has been since the days of cover disks with either IE, Netscape, or AOL on them) and therefore each browser tries to differentiate themselves. Cross-device testing is a software testing technique that checks solutions in multiple formats and on various devices, to provide confidence in their quality and accessibility no matter how a user chooses to interact.
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