Mobile-Friendly Web Apps: Testing For Responsive Experiences

Still not investing in mobile-friendly test cases? Can you even imagine how much of the target audience you are losing by doing so? Almost 60% of the total Internet is used from mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. So if your application isn’t compatible on these devices, there is a very high possibility that you are not only losing Google organic traffic but also providing a negative experience for your users. 

Don’t know how to solve this process? Don’t worry! We are here for you. Our article will help you understand the importance of mobile responsiveness while exploring the test cases to implement this process. We will also help you go through some of the best practices and strategies to properly implement this testing workflow. 

Why Mobile-Friendly Tests 

Since the entire concept of this article revolves around mobile-friendly tests, it is only fair that we begin our discussion by laying the basic foundation for this. To understand more about why should you start investing in a mobile-friendly test, let us divert our attention towards some of its major advantages: 

Changing User Behavior 

As we already mentioned in the introduction of this article, a huge section of the user is starting to adopt mobile devices so that they can access their applications and other important details on the go. Therefore, if you do not keep up with this trend and make your application mobile-compatible, you will be massively falling behind in terms of end-user experience. 

For example, if your app isn’t compatible with mobile devices, there is a very high possibility that it can completely crash when accessed on one such device.  

Search Engine Optimization  

Due to the rising trend of mobile users, Google is also actively adjusting its SEO analytics and parameters to prefer those websites that have been designed with a mobile-first approach. This means that if you do not adopt this approach, you will not be ranking on the Google search results, and your users will not be able to look for you in the search results. 

Accessibility And Inclusivity 

With a responsive design, you can guarantee that your web app is usable on a huge range of devices and screen sizes. This also includes various forms of assistive technologies that are highly important to create an inclusive design for modern applications. 

So, with this approach, you will not only be implementing an inclusive approach but also ensuring that you do not get into any legal complications or geographic bans depending on the local laws. 

What Is Responsive Design 

Since responsive design is a very important part, if not the most important part, of a mobile-friendly design, it is only relevant that we also include it as one of the most important discussion points for this article. It is the process of creating web apps that can automatically adjust their layouts and elements based on the screen size and orientation of the device. 

This approach ensures that the user interface looks and works excellently well irrespective of the device that your end user will end up using to access the application. To shed more light over this segment, let us divert our attention towards some of the major elements of responsive design: 

1. Fluid grids within a web page ensure that you are implementing percentage-based widths instead of fixed dimensions so that the entire infrastructure of the application can scale accordingly depending on the available screen size. 
2. By implementing a flexible approach, you can ensure that the image can scale with the containing elements and is clearly visible and accessible depending on the user’s parameters. 
3. Finally, by implementing media queries, you will be using a CSS technique that applies different styles depending on device characteristics. The primary intention of this motive is to ensure that all the UI elements are not only properly placed but are also usable irrespective of a small screen size. 

Key Strategies for Responsive Web App Testing 

Let us now go through some of the major strategies that you must invest in responsive web app testing to ensure that you are using the full potential of this advanced testing process: 

• It is very important to start the entire workflow by creating a list of all your target devices, browser versions, and operating systems. This approach will ensure that you’re keeping your testing approach streamlined and focused. You must have enough outdated browser versions and devices on your list, as a huge segment of the users do not update very often. 
• To ensure that your mobile applications are functioning properly when exposed to the native environment, you can run them using various emulators and simulators. But, you must know that these software cannot always replicate the physical parameters of a device. This means without a real device, you cannot understand how your application’s behavior changes depending on parameters like low battery or user error. 
• If you integrate automation testing with responsive testing, you can massively improve the speed of the execution step. To perform this process, you can rely on various tools like Selenium Mobile Testing using Appium, Cypress, or AppliTools. 
• While you are running responsive mobile testing, you should also check that whether the core interactions are functioning smoothly on multiple devices. Some of the major areas that you must test include tap and swipe, responsive navigation menus, popups and alerts, and various forms of touch targets like buttons and links. 
• You should focus on performance testing to make sure that the mobile version of the application loads quickly and efficiently. This should also be the case even with a slow network connection. It will also be a great idea to use tools like Lighthouse for performance audits, WebPageTest for detailed performance breakdown, and Chrome DevTools for simulating slow or unstable network conditions. 
• Finally, we should also ensure that the layout can adjust correctly when switching between portrait and landscape modes. You can perform this process using CSS media queries while checking for overflow, clipping, or distortion issues during the adjustment process.  

Best Practices for Responsive Web App Testing 

Finally, let us go through some of the best practices that we would recommend you to add while implementing responsive web web testing so we have carefully created these practices to ensure that they not only help improve the quality of the testing environment but will also have a very important role in improving its scalability and accuracy: 

Use a Mobile-First Approach 

You should design and test the mobile experience of the application as one of your primary targets. This approach will be very important to create a mobile-first testing and design workflow. Depending on the results that you achieve in this process, you can improve the experience on tablets and desktop platforms as well. 

Use Modular and Component-Based Testing 

We would recommend you to test the individual components of the application separately before testing the full page integration. This will be very important when you are working with frameworks like React and Angular. It will also ensure that any faulty element does not impact the functioning of other elements on the application. 

Stay Updated With Advanced Practices 

The world of automation testing and responsive testing is constantly changing to add various advanced processes like artificial intelligence and machine learning. We would advise you to constantly look out for all these upcoming technologies so that you can instantly integrate them within your testing environment. 

Before integrating any new technology, you must perform a thorough research to ensure that it can benefit not only your application but also your own preferences. It is also important to perform a controlled analysis within a non-critical area before you actually migrate the entire environment. 

Integrate Responsive Testing into CI/CD 

You should try and automate responsive and visual regression testing with continuous integration and continuous deployment pipelines. This approach will also help ensure that you are running the development and testing process at the same time to further reduce the feedback loop in the application testing cycle. 

Don’t Rely Only on Emulators 

Although emulators are an easy way of performing device testing, you still have to use real device test cases to ensure accurate test reports. Do not want to set up a physical device lab? Consider using cloud-based testing platforms like LambdaTest. 

LambdaTest is an AI-native test orchestration and execution platform that lets you perform manual and automation testing at scale with over 3000+ browsers, OS combinations, and 5000+ real devices. 

While using LambdaTest, you can perform Selenium mobile testing with the integration of Appium to run automated mobile cross-browser testing and automated mobile web app testing. These processes will be very important to ensure that your application is stable on multiple combinations of operating systems, browser versions, and real devices. 

Excited to learn more? We have given a sample code to run automated mobile web app testing using LambdaTest, Selenium, and Appium.  

Run Usability Testing 

Since the interaction process on mobile devices is completely different when compared to desktops and other devices, it is very important to include real users in the testing process. This approach will help you gain feedback on navigation, readability, and interactions. 

It is also a great idea to use tools like UserTesting or Lookback.io, to interact with your mobile application in real-time during the testing process to ensure that it is performing as per your expectations.  

Other than all the best practices that we have given above, you should also understand that there will be certain practices which need to be customized depending on the requirements of the application that you’re working on. To properly perform this process, you must have a clear understanding about the application requirements and its intentions.  

The Bottom Line 

Based on everything that we discussed in this article, we can safely come to the conclusion that creating a mobile-friendly web app is a very important part of the modern testing approach. Our strategies and best practices will make sure that your app gives the best performance on mobile devices. 

By using responsive testing, your application will give a high-quality experience to your users, irrespective of the hardware or software that they might be using to access your apps. 

So, if you start investing in responsive testing for your apps, you are indirectly working on user satisfaction, brand reputation, and the long-term success for your business. Factors like these will go a long way in solidifying the state of your business in this competitive market.