Ensuring Cross Browser Compatibility: Strategies and Tools

Today, the software sector is growing at a rapid pace alongside the OS, browsers, and device markets. For any software or business, cross browser testing and offering a superior user experience to a larger user base are essential. Additionally, all possible browser and OS configurations.

If the application doesn’t support an environment, it should nonetheless provide the most basic functionality and the fewest features possible. In this article, we will be able to ensure that the application functions for all of the intended users.

Cross-Browser Compatibility Testing

Browser compatibility testing involves ensuring that a website or online application functions and appears consistently across various web browser versions. Layout, functionality, and user experience issues might arise when different browsers display web content differently. Testing is crucial as a result.

Compatibility testing vs cross-browser testing

Browser compatibility testing and cross-browser testing are important components of software development, especially web development, although they have different goals and applications.

Testing Across Browsers

Ensuring that a website or web application functions properly and consistently across various web browsers is the main goal of cross-browser testing. In order to find and fix any problems or inconsistencies resulting from browser-specific variations, it entails testing the website across a number of browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, and others. Making sure the website or application looks and works as intended is the main objective, independent of the browser that users are using.

Different Compatibility Testing Types

Compatibility testing comes in a variety of forms, each focusing on a certain facet of software environments:

●     Testing for Backward Compatibility

A software application’s backward compatibility is tested to make sure it works with earlier versions. It verifies that there are no problems with the new version’s compatibility with the data, configurations, and other parts used in previous versions.

●     Testing for Forward Compatibility

Testing for forward compatibility ensures that a program will continue to function properly with upgraded hardware or software. Testing of this kind guarantees that the program will continue to operate and be efficient even in the face of emerging technologies.

Common Challenges in Ensuring Compatibility

There are several obstacles to overcome when creating seamless digital experiences across various platforms and browsers. Taking care of these problems is essential to building a website that is user-friendly for everyone. The following are typical obstacles that developers and designers encounter:

Browser Inconsistencies:

Finding that different browsers render the same HTML and CSS code differently is a typical issue for web developers. For instance, a layout that appears flawless on Internet Explorer may have unforeseen problems with alignment or spacing. To maintain visual homogeneity, this discrepancy needs to be carefully adjusted as it can cause users to have unpleasant user experiences.

Feature Support:

As new web technologies and features are introduced, browsers change. But not every browser adopts these features at the same rate. When developers wish to integrate state-of-the-art features while keeping older browser versions compatible, this can provide difficulties. In order to guarantee that functionalities decline gently in unsupported browsers, strategies like progressive enhancement and graceful degradation are used.

Legacy Compatibility:

It’s important to take into account the user base for older browsers, including Internet Explorer 11. In order to achieve compatibility without compromising the user experience, these browsers may require workarounds or other solutions because they frequently lack support for contemporary web standards.

Complexities of Testing:

Thorough testing is essential to find compatibility problems. However, testing takes a lot of time and resources when done on many platforms, devices, and browsers. To find disparities that might have an impact on the user experience, it entails reproducing user interactions and scenarios.

Uniformity in User Experience:

One of the main challenges is achieving uniformity in the user experience across different platforms and devices. When dealing with a brand, users want a cohesive experience, and it takes careful work to keep this cohesiveness while taking platform variations into account.

Technical proficiency in cross-platform and cross-browser compatibility, innovative problem-solving techniques, and a thorough comprehension of user behavior are necessary to meet these obstacles. In the digital world, providing a faultless and engaging user experience requires skillfully addressing these problems.

Strategies to combat compatibility issues

We can adhere to the following guidelines to prevent cross-browser compatibility problems in the production environment:-

Validate HTML and CSS

Different browsers interpret and handle code in unique ways. It is not uncommon for developers to inadvertently omit certain syntax elements, such as closing tags or semicolons. While modern browsers might autocorrect such errors, older browsers may not, leading to rendering issues.

Steps to Avoid Coding Errors:

• Write Well-Aligned Code: Ensure that the code is neatly organized and easy to read.
• Use Proper Indentation: Maintain consistent indentation and matching of opening and closing braces.

Validation Tools:

• Jigsaw CSS Validator: Ensures CSS follows best practices.
• JS Formatter for HTML: Helps format JavaScript embedded in HTML.
• CSS Lint: Identifies errors and potential problems in CSS.
• JS Lint: Analyzes JavaScript code for errors.

Maintain Layout Compatibility

Applications must have responsive design in order to function properly on all platforms, devices, and browser versions.

Common Causes of Layout Incompatibility:

• Unresponsive design for mobile devices.
• Differences in how modern browsers render layouts.
• Lack of support for certain layouts in some modern browsers.

Methods to Maintain Layout Compatibility:

• HTML Viewport Meta Tag: Ensures content spans properly across mobile screens.
• CSS Multi-Column Layouts: Maintains layout consistency for multi-column content.
• CSS Flexbox and Grid: Helps in arranging child elements based on content and available space.

Use CSS Resets

Browsers apply default design styles to websites. To ensure consistent styling, developers need to override these default styles using CSS reset style sheets.

Examples of CSS Reset Style Sheets:

• HTML5 Reset: A minimal set of best practices to get HTML5 projects off on the right foot.
• Eric Meyer’s Reset CSS: A well-known CSS reset stylesheet.

Provide Assistance With The Application’s Basic Features

Cross-browser compatibility includes ensuring that the application’s basic features work across different browsers. Feature detection can help provide alternate code for browsers that do not support certain features.

Implementing Feature Detection:

• Write Custom Feature Detection Code: For CSS and JavaScript features.
• Use Feature Detection Libraries: Such as Modernizr or Polyfill, which help manage browser-specific functionalities.

Check JavaScript Issues

JavaScript can be a significant source of cross-browser compatibility issues. Here’s how to manage JavaScript compatibility:

• Use Compatible JavaScript Libraries: Ensure the library supports the required browsers and features.
• JavaScript Transpiling: Convert modern ES6/ECMAScript code into a format that older browsers can understand using tools like Babel.

Check the DOCTYPE Tag

Browser Modes Affected by DOCTYPE:

• Full Standard Mode: Strict adherence to W3C specifications.
• Almost Standard Mode: Minor quirks are allowed.
• Quirk Mode: Emulates non-standard behaviors for older browsers.

To ensure consistent rendering, include the DOCTYPE declaration at the beginning of your HTML documents.

Test on Real Devices

While virtual machines and environments are useful, testing on real devices is crucial for identifying cross-browser compatibility issues. Real device testing helps uncover issues that might not be visible in virtual environments.

Setting Up Real Device Testing:

• Manual Device Lab: While setting up a manual lab is challenging, it is sometimes necessary.
• Cross-Browser Testing Tools: Platforms like LambdaTest provide access to thousands of real device-browser combinations for comprehensive testing.

Cross-Browser Test Early

Start cross-browser testing as soon as a single page of the application is ready. Early testing helps identify and fix compatibility issues early in the development cycle, reducing stress and challenges later on.

Resources and Tools for Testing

Many specialized tools and resources make navigating the complexity of cross-platform and cross-browser compatibility easier. Here are some useful tools to help you optimize your testing procedure and guarantee a smooth user experience:

LambdaTest

An AI-powered cloud-based testing platform that lets you test your website in a virtual setting using actual browsers on various hardware and operating systems. With LambdaTest, you can test browsers in real-time on over 3,000 different combinations of devices, operating systems, and browsers. This broad browser compatibility guarantees that your website works perfectly in a variety of settings.

• Testing on Real Devices: The LambdaTest device cloud allows you to test your website on real devices, producing accurate and dependable results that closely resemble user experiences in the real world.

LambdaTest allows for parallel testing, which means that you can run several tests at once. Because of the large reduction in overall execution time, compatibility issues can be identified and resolved more quickly.

CrossBrowserTesting

You may use this tool to test your website interactively across a variety of browsers and devices. To monitor changes across several iterations of your website, it offers visual comparisons, responsive design testing, and screenshots.

PageSpeed Insights from Google

This Google tool evaluates how well your website performs and makes recommendations for enhancing load speeds and user experience. A website that loads more quickly enhances user experience and may have a favorable effect on compatibility.

Conclusion

Following the outlined steps can significantly reduce most cross-browser compatibility issues. However, the critical step to solidify these precautions is thorough cross-browser compatibility testing. For this testing to be effective, utilizing automated cross-browser compatibility testing tools is crucial.

LambdaTest and other cross-browser testing tools are essential for quickly and effectively testing your application’s cross-browser compatibility. Through the integration of these tools into your testing process, you can guarantee a uniform user experience on all platforms and browsers.