Most consumer decisions are based on the information accessed by the user on the web. From the smallest purchase decisions like ordering a meal to the biggest like investments, most of the purchase decisions are made by consumers based on the information regarding the product or services. It means every business has to maintain a website to gain the traction of the audience and provide them with adequate information to make a purchase decision.
But having a website doesn’t suffice. It must be informative, user-friendly, and accessible. The website should be tested thoroughly from every perspective to maintain these elements. This is called the web app testing process.
Table of ContentsWeb application testing is a standard software testing practice to test websites and applications to identify potential bugs before it is accessible to web users. The issues like security, compatibility with multiple devices, performance, functionality, and ability to handle traffic and real-time users are tested.
Some of the factors that make Web App Testing significant during SDLC (Software Development Lifecycle) are:
When running web application tests, start with figuring out what the unique needs of the end-users might be. For example, the site should be optimized for:
To perform comprehensive web application testing, it is necessary to do different types of tests that fulfill the requirements mentioned in the web app testing checklist above. These different types of tests are described below.
Functional Testing aims at testing the overall functional capabilities of the web app. In Functional Testing, all the features and operational behavior of a web app are tested to ensure the compatibility of features and specifications. It doesn’t have anything to test the internal mechanism and output specific to any input.
The functional testing intends to verify if your product has all the functional specifications as desired or mentioned in the development documentation. It ensures that the functionalities and requirements work from the end user’s perspective. It tests every minute possibility & input by a user that developers didn’t expect. The testing method should be completed with automated test cases to provide an effective positive user experience.
You can perform Functionality tests by following the below steps:
Usability testing checks the user-friendliness of the elements in the web app. It tests the flow of the web app and how the user can navigate through it seamlessly. Usability testing relies on standard practices that ensure the ease of use and effectiveness of a web app. It roots out all the errors, like typos, punctuation, and weak flow. Together, these elements can make a poor impression of a website and reduce its capacity. Usability tests the application in the form that is accessed by the end-users. Hence, studying the user personas and their requirements is essential for usability tests.
You can perform Usability tests by following the below steps:
Interface Testing checks how the website communicates at different interfaces such as Application, Web Server, and the Database. It is different from Integration testing, where the different internal components of the application are put together and tested. In Interface testing, how the application communicates with the web server or the database is checked. During Interface testing, various interfaces are tested as follows:
Any web application has two major interfaces where the tests need to be performed:
Interface testing performed between any of the above interface is used to:
Database testing is important to check how the web application stores data and performs various functions that include:
You can perform Database tests by following the below steps:
In Performance Testing, the test process relates to a system’s speed, stability, and scalability under different scenarios. It checks whether the system can deliver the same efficiency with various outputs from different users. Performance Testing ensures:
You can perform Performance tests by following the below steps:
The same website renders differently in different browsers and their versions, which is why it is essential to perform cross browser compatibility tests. Cross Browser Testing allows you to test if your web application functions seamlessly and consistently across multiple browsers on different desktop and mobile devices. Every web element like buttons, images, text fields, lists, and more changes with the change in OS, which is why it is important to test cross-platform compatibility by testing on real devices as opposed to emulators or simulators.
BrowserStack’s real device cloud offers access to 3000+ real devices and browsers, and lets you test under real user conditions for better accuracy.
The process involves testing, analyzing, and reporting every security aspect of your app. Security administrators do it to test the security level of the app through both manual and automated security testing methods. Security testing performs different functions such as:
You can perform Performance tests by following the below steps:
| Testing Type | Action Needed | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Functional Testing | Check if the functional operation of the web app in different test scenarios is as expected | ✓ |
| Usability Testing | Identify different types of user personas and check if the website UI is user-friendly. | ✓ |
| Interface Testing | Check if different interfaces such as Application, Web Server, and the Database communicate as expected with each other. | ✓ |
| Database Testing | Check if the Data is flowing well within the Web App to and from the Database | ✓ |
| Performance Testing | Check if the Web App is able to bear the load of extra traffic without crashing and has a good loading speed | ✓ |
| Compatibility Testing | Check if the Web app is compatible with different device browser combinations working consistently | ✓ |
| Security Testing | Check if the web app is passing the penetration test ensuring security again data breach | ✓ |
Conclusion
To test web application comprehensively it is essential to follow the above checklist and perform different types of tests to ensure the web application is bug-free in every aspect. However, to identify the bottlenecks, it is important to test the applications under real user conditions, which is only possible by testing the web apps on a real device cloud.
By choosing a secured real device cloud like BrowserStack, QAs can efficiently test their web apps on 3000+ real browsers and devices. This makes testing Agile for them with wider coverage. The cloud allows parallel testing and supports integrations with popular CI/CD tools such as Jira, Jenkins, CircleCI, TeamCity, and Travis CI, to ensure streamlined Automation Testing of your web app.