by During the early years of the Internet, websites were only present in the form of HTML pages. These websites could only show a certain set of specified information that had been previously stored on the servers. However, with the advancement of technology and the rising demands of customers, websites needed to perform a lot of interactive purposes. Moreover, the application development company started to transform native applications into web apps. Applications can perform all the functions of contemporary native apps without going through the hassle of downloading and installing any application on a physical device. However, these complexities in the application have given rise to various bugs, errors, and even altogether crashing the applications in the worst-case scenario. Therefore, the developers had to prioritize testing the web to ensure that all the components are working as expected.
In this article, we will discuss some of the modern web testing trends that will influence the web application development industry in 2023. We will try to discuss some of the best practices that can help developers to utilize the most out of their future web applications.
The Obstacles of Modern Web Testing
In the early years of the Internet, end-users could access the web only from their desktop platforms. However, in the year 2010, more mobile devices started to appear in the market. These devices had the capability of providing a similar experience to a desktop platform while fitting in the pockets of the end users. Due to this feature, smartphones became one of the instant hits in the application market. However, these phones are completely different from each other in all aspects. For instance, these devices can have variations in terms of screen, display resolution, operating system, or physical specifications.
Data shows that more than 1000 Android devices appear in the market every year. So, we can only imagine how huge the final number can be considering there are other popular platforms like iOS, Windows, and Blackberry. Currently, customers can access the Internet from mobile devices, tablets, and desktops.
So, an application development company can’t maintain a physical device testing bench. This is because it will not only be a very expensive process but will also be tiresome to maintain as the smartphone industry will continue to dramatically evolve with the coming years. Therefore, the best solution for this problem is to integrate cloud platforms in the primary testbench. Using cloud devices, the developers can access hundreds of real mobile phones that are stored on multiple cloud servers. The application development companies can access these servers by paying only a minimal license fee. Let us understand more about the influence of cloud platforms by considering LambdaTest as a reference:
Lambdatest is a cloud-integrated tool that ensures that all modern web applications are cross-browser compatible. Cross-browser compatibility is a process of ensuring that the web application does not display any loss in performance due to multiple changes in terms of the operating system, browser version, or the specific device. LambdaTest improves the efficiency of the test cases by introducing parallel testing. Parallel testing is the process of executing multiple different configurations of test cases at the same time. While using automation testing, developers can use different automation frameworks like playwright, Cypress, and Selenium. LambdaTest generates highly accurate test results by combining test reports not only from emulators and simulators but also from real devices. Lastly while using Selenium, LambdaTest can verify the functioning of the application on more than three thousand different browsers.
However, before introducing any tool to the main test bench, the developers must ensure that it is trustworthy and will not have any negative impact on the testing capabilities of the system. The easiest way to verify the trustworthiness of a tool or a platform is to check for forums that are available on the Internet. These forums consist of multiple tech enthusiasts who are currently using these tools. So, they can provide honest reviews based on daily activities and their life experiences. For reference, LambdaTest has thousands of positive reviews on multiple forums all over the world.
Latest Trends for Testing Web
Now, let us discuss some of the latest trends for web application testing. The developers must keep these trends in mind to ensure the proper utilization of the available resources:
1. Integration of Automation Testing
Automation testing is one of the advanced testing practices that helps developers quickly conduct repetitive test cases. With the help of test automation, the developers can automatically execute various processes by using automated test scripts. Some of the common test cases that can benefit from test automation are regression testing, data analysis testing, and unit testing. However, application development companies must remember that the initial charges for integrating test automation are quite high. So, it is very important to consider the business perspective of a company before beginning the transition.
2. Proper Balance of Automation Testing and Manual Testing
The superiority of automation testing often leads to the misbelief that automation testing can completely replace manual test cases during the application development lifecycle. This is completely incorrect as certain test cases are completely dependent on the expertise and knowledge of a human tester. For instance, it is impossible to verify the proper placement of all the visual elements in a web application without a human tester. Similarly, exploratory testing finds out errors and bugs in the application that are often overlooked by automated test cases. Therefore, it is ideal for developers to maintain a proper balance between automation testing and manual testing. This will help them to create a high-quality web application.
3. Introduction of Tools and Platforms
As we already discussed in the earlier part of this article, different tools and platforms can help developers to improve the quality of the application development process. Currently, there are thousands of such tools that are available in the market. However, the testers need to choose the correct tool according to the requirements. This will help them to ensure that they can utilize the full potential of their test bench. Some of the factors that the developers must consider during the tool selection process are the availability of their preferred programming language, license fee expenses, and support for third-party tools and libraries. It is also important that your chosen tool must support agile methodologies and the introduction of continuous integration.
4. Dark Mode
The dark mode is continuing to gain more popularity in all segments of the application development industry. This is because it is not only soothing to the human eye but also helps to reduce the device’s power consumption. Experts believe that dark mode will continue to gain popularity in 2023. So, web developing companies need to ensure that the application is properly compatible with this new mode. Moreover, the developers need to ensure that the dark mode is accessible on all devices irrespective of platform restrictions.
5. Optimization for Voice Search
Voice search is one of those features that was once considered to be a luxury in an application. However recently with various evolutions of this technology, users have started to realize how important and convenient voice search is. A recent study shows that the use of voice searches on web applications has increased by almost 30%. So, we can easily expect that this number will continue to rise as we proceed to 2023. Therefore, the developers must start integrating voice search in all the elements of their web application. They should also ensure that voice searches are optimized according to linguistic barriers. Linguistic barriers refer to language preferences and voice type depending on the geographical location of a user.
6. Progressive Web Applications
As we already discussed, during the initial years of web applications, the users only used the desktop platform to access them. However, with the advancement of technology, end users can use not only desktops, tablets, and mobiles to access the Internet but also, they can do it from their smartwatches. This means that with the conventional development processes, the developers have to create individual web applications for all of these platforms. It is needless to say that this process will not only be time-consuming but will also drain a lot of unnecessary company resources. This is the main reason why progressive web applications are beginning to gain popularity in 2022 and will continue to do so in 2023.
Progressive web applications are those that can adapt themselves irrespective of changes in the operating system or the browser version. This means the developers can write the test case once and implement it on multiple platforms.
7. Single Page Applications
Nowadays, end users can perform multiple actions with only one web application. However, it is not an ideal practice to continue redirecting the user to multiple web pages for every individual action. Therefore, the developers should try to frame the web application in such a way that most of the basic tasks can be completed on the home page itself. This process will not only help to improve user satisfaction but will also help to keep the bounce rates under control. The bounce rates of a website determine the total number of users that abandon it after using it only once. Bounce rates and user retention rates are two of the most important parameters from a business point of view.
The developers can also use artificial intelligence-powered chatbots to improve user interaction on the web page. These chatbots should solve some of the basic issues and collect feedback for better analysis. These chatbots can also help to connect users to life agents for solving their queries or possible business Ventures
The Conclusion
So, we can conclude that the web development industry is one of the most advanced and continuously evolving parts of the industry. Web developers need to keep themselves updated with all the modern trends to ensure that they do not fall behind the competition. This process will also help them to continue expanding their user base. It is also very important for application development companies to spread proper awareness regarding this process. Many experts believe that only 60% of web-developing companies use automation testing. The rest of the industry should also start shifting to automation testing practices as it will continue to become one of the dominant parts of the application development lifecycle. Lastly, web developers need to understand the importance of proper tools and platforms for testing the web.
