You cannot afford to launch a new website without performing these tests. In this post, we're going to talk about the seven tests that are absolutely necessary to run on the website before going live.
A website is an important aspect for every business or an individual. Even if we consider a smaller and lesser complex website such as a portfolio for a freelancer, if it does not scale properly and the forms don’t work as they should, there is no output of the hard work he had put into it. Therefore, before anyone sees your website over the internet, it is absolutely necessary to first test it for every scenario and then publish it on the internet. In this post, we will talk about the same thing and introduce you to seven tests that are absolutely necessary to be executed on the website.
Readability Testing
A website has a lot of content. It’s a good practice to have a few images but you will never be able to deliver the information in your actual words until you write it. On the other side, your audience will never be able to receive the information that you are trying to convey until they are able to read it properly or in other words, the content is readable. This bridge is closed by the readability testing. Readability testing helps the website owner understand the readability errors on the website. It explores whether the content is polished enough from the reader’s point of view or not.
The checkpoints include:
- Testing the size of the font and font-readability on the website.
- Structure of the readable content such as spaces, shorter paragraphs etc.
- Testing the language, spelling and grammar of the website.
Readability applications are plenty on the internet and there are a lot of plugins for your WordPress website too. They provide readability score and other tips to improve the readability of the content on your website.
Responsive Design Testing
Responsive design is the one which adjusts itself to the screen on which the website is being viewed. With so many mobile screens and different types of devices today in the market, it is extremely important to be prepared for these devices and test for responsive design beforehand. Responsive design has a lot of aspects such as making images responsive or applying the media queries for the content etc. When testing is so important, it is equally important to choose the right tool for the same. LambdaTest is a cross-browser testing tool that helps in responsive testing. Since responsive testing needs different screen devices, LambdaTest has a separate module just to cater to the needs of responsive testing and provide efficient reports. LambdaTest also has a browser called the LT browser which has been crafted just for performing the responsive website testing on different screens. LT browser gives the user control over a lot of modules and the user is free to design his own device with his own specification. If your website needs responsive testing, you can give it a try!
Broken Link Testing
A webpage contains a lot of links. Take for example the Wikipedia page. Open any Wikipedia page and count the links they have on one page. They are too many! For these many links, the website is heavily depended on them as they will keep your user on the website. If any of the links are broken for any reason, the website takes the loss. Hence, it is extremely important to test all the links and replace or erase the links that are broken. This is called broken link testing and for a very dynamic website, should be done regularly. Links can be tested through tools available online or you can also use selenium for this as one of the many steps before launching a website.
Browser Testing
Browser testing or popularly called as cross-browser testing is one of the most, if not the most, important testing if you are related to the development of a website. If a website is not cross-browser compatible and raises several cross-browser compatibility issues, it will always be closed within a minute. Cross-browser testing ensures that all the component will align as they should no matter on what screen the website has been opened. Moreover, if they do, then how do they look and is presentable or not.
LambdaTest is a cloud-based cross-browser testing tool with 2000+ browsers and loads of features for testers and developers. LambdaTest provides real-time testing on the system whose specifications are chosen by the testers. A tester can find a combination of specification on the platform. Real-time testing allows the tester to run the tests as if he is running them on his own systems. It is easy, simple and straightforward.
LambdaTest also allows the tester to use the tunnel feature which can run the real-time tests on the websites that are not yet published and are available only locally.
Speed Testing
The speed for website comes under user experience. Recently Google has started to take the speed of website loading into consideration as a parameter for ranking them on the search engine. Speed is too important and a website which takes more than 2 seconds to load (partially accepted) is not acceptable by the user. Hence, speed testing helps the developers analyze the missing link and use technologies that usse asynchronous loading or are rendered very fast. There are a lot of factors involved in judging the speed of the website. There are a lot of tools available only that can help you check the speed and give you the tips to reduce this time but in the end, only the developers can understand the loopholes according to the technologies they have used. Hence, speed testing should always be performed regularly as the website size keeps on increasing.
Usability Testing
A usability testing is another type of testing that is recommended in the website testing. The problem is that when we give a technical person like a tester or a developer to test a website, they are normally aware of the components technically. No matter how user-type they behave, they will always have a technical eye for a product. Therefore, it is recommended to bring aboard a real user who has no relation to the website or computer science whatsoever and record his experience. This experience and feedback is genuine and there is a great chance that if he is feeling this then a lot of the other users would feel the same.
Mobile Testing
Mobile users have been increasing since the last decade at a very high speed. Today, they mark for about 52% of all the internet users in the world. This makes it highly important that the website you are deploying should be able to run on the mobile devices. Testing this scenario of the website is called as the mobile testing. Mobile testing is important to increase the traffic, get more users and most of all be along with the Google’s mobile first index policy. This policy prefers those websites that are rendered correctly on the mobile devices and have a good user experience. Mobile testing is offered by online tools or you can also take the manual way and check the website manually. On the other side, you can go ahead with any efficient tool such as LambdaTest which has a special browser LT browser just for mobile device testing. It is very light, fast and wrap up the testing quickly.
Conclusion
Websites are not something unique today. Everyone trying to reach even a little audience has a website. There are billions of websites on the internet today and there is a really great chance that whatever you are thinking to develop a website for, already has a competition. On top of that, if your website does not perform as expected, there is no escape. This can be dodged only through proper and efficient testing of the website and including every aspect of it. This post highlights seven such types of testing that covers the complete area. Therefore, it is always a good choice to go for these testing using a tool that has the capabilities and latest features to cater to the needs. These may include automation testing, integrations with third-party tools, real-time testing etc. One such tool is LambdaTest. It is feasible, efficient and provides 2000+ browser support for the testers. If you are thinking about the website testing, do give it a try!
