Testing workflow
I'm trying to figure out the best workflow for testing devices and browsers- I know it differs from site to site, and project to project but I just wondered if anyone had any tips on how they make it a smoothish process.
And I'm not at the scope where I want to pay $20/month for a service like BrowserStack. I have a couple older iphones, a couple older galaxies, MacBook and two windows pcs, an iPad and a Samsung tablet. Different versions of their respective oS's.
But i dont have all the browsers on all of them. Since any browser on an iPhone or iPad uses safari engine that cuts down on a few, but testing Safari, Samsung internet, Opera, Chrome, Firefox and Edge (6 browsers) as the bare minimum on say 6-7 devices is lots to do.
Then if you catch a bug on one browser and one device then make changes to try to fix it, that bugs out on a browser I've already tested so have to retest, make decisions or find a workaround.
Just curious if anyone's found a good rhythm that works for them- like do you test all browsers on all devices, note all the changes, make one change at a time and retest each browser on every device after each change? What about browsers- do you count all chromium as one (like test on Chrome and if it works , you don't feel you need to test on Edge?)
The growth gets exponential 😵💫
10 Replies
I've never encountered such a huge need, but I'd probably break down the testing process into several steps:
1) Let's call it "Major Testing" (e.g maybe daily):
- Latest Chrome on Windows
- Safari on iOS
- Chrome on Android
- FF latest
2) "Secondary" testing (e.g maybe weekly):
- Edge (as it's Chromium-based, mainly check for Edge-specific features)
- Additional devices comes in here
- Maybe some older versions of primary browseres
3) Edge Cases (e.g maybe montly)
- Opera
- Older devices/OS ver
- Niche browsers
It's more about focusing on which browsers/devices represent the majority of traffic on your resource. We have a dominant group (70-80% or even more) - we prioritize it
Also good tip would be creating kind of a spreadsheet-checklist template thingy for what you really wanna check. I believe BrowserStack has one already, you can build your own based on that.
Speaking of Chromium-based browsers, we can't really treat all as "Chromium" collectively, because Chrome is kind of a master browser in here. Because of the different speed of implementing of new APIs, it's not uncommon for these browsers to implement something new “long” enough, Chrome tends to do it faster
On the other hand, there are cases when Edge implemented something faster than the Chrome team. These are quite specific cases, more affecting some APIs not yet supported by all browsers (for example Payment Request API which is not fully supported by FF for now)
But I'd still treat the Chrome as a sort of big brother that you want to give more love to, the others wouldn't be forgotten, but they'd get noticeably less attention
It's a nice topic, would be interesting to read the thread when more people give their opinions on it
So you test while you’re building still (daily, weekly etc ) not when you’re close to finished?
i build on firefox and use the “css can i use this tool” to check if other browers support what i want to use. Sometimes while building specifically when i see that something is partially supported by a browser or not at all i check how it behaves on those browsers. At the end i test everything specifically on major browsers.
since you have multiple pcs, you might be interested in testing with multiple font size settings
this is important because people can increase the font size
for example, on my work pc, i have it at 125% on a 1080p display
I had tested with increasing browser font size OR zooming but until our last convo about this, hadn’t tested both increased font size AND zoomed screen 🤗
no no, the windows settings too
Windows oS? Like the system font size ? Or windows like browser windows?
windows os
in the display settings
Gotcha , will add it to the list
i know it is irritating, but, it's an important test