Importance of Continuous Testing Plan for Responsive Website Design

The primary advantage of responsive technology is that it makes your website available for different browser window sizes. It’s also certain that not all responsive websites operate the way designers want it to and that’s the reality.

Good or bad people definitely have a website running, but that is not going to make any impact on business unless the buyer’s journey on the website is acknowledged comprehensively. According to the recent study, users tend to abandon responsive websites owing to navigation barriers or other usability concerns. Now, tell me when was the last time you visited a website on your mobile phone and left happy about the browsing experience?

I’m pretty sure you have some hard thinking to do.

Why do you need to have a continuous plan for Responsive Website Design?

The sole purpose of having responsive websites is to give users a uniform experience regardless the browser they use. When the website content dynamically arranges itself for the device, users are going to have a good experience but to achieve that continuous testing is necessary for the responsive website you design.

From continuous testing, you will ensure comprehensive performance, functionality, and maintain consistency in the visual layout. Also, you will successfully keep other operating features are in line with the growing updates.

SEO & Responsive Website Design

One URL that serves all the devices constitutes a responsive web design. Since the current consumer market is looking for dynamic experiences, even Google bots prefer websites as such. Having responsive website does have a huge number of benefits.

• Websites designed with responsive technology are more likely to rank higher in the search engines.
• One website, one URL – consumers will have super flexible user-experience.
• Faster, improved site usability- better customer experience – improved traffic and search rankings.

Responsive web design short for RWD reduces bounce rate as they are faster and offer a better experience than regular websites.

Procedure for Continuous Testing Plan for Responsive Web Design

1. Conduct Client-Side Performance Tests

Clients use a multitude of devices and browsers and it’s no secret.  So the product, in this case, your website that is being built, is it suitable for end-users?

Client-side performance testing involves every element that is used your client/user. Also, an experienced developer makes sure to test all the elements of the website under real-world conditions, like specific network states.

One thing DevOps team should remember since the responsive web design is about targeting a variety of combinations like Safari on MacOS versions, IE on Windows 8.1, they should continuously test the images and content on different viewports and platforms.

2. Build Visual Testing to the Test Automation Code

What are the things, I mean the visual things that might impact a website user?

Poor readability, bad CTA contrast, copy, imagery, and other visually available elements impact/say influence on usability and conversion. In the responsive web design, all these visual elements should easily blend in with various viewports of different devices.

Relevant UI checkpoint validations must be added wherever necessary. You can make use of Applitools for visual validation and address pixel issues and other image-related business in less time.

Visual validation, what exactly can we understand by this term?

The visual validation testing is performed to make sure that UI appears correctly to the end-users.

3. Let there be Navigation Testing Across Different Platforms

Navigation testing is essential to improve information architecture and critical user flows. The whole website is developed of series of click points that are placed logically, which finally directs the user to the sales funnel.

Navigation testing helps to improve the current version design. When a customer is navigating through a website, there is no guarantee he will walk through till he finds something interesting. He may drop-off in between; you can look into the design flow and improve or tweak the designs wherever needed.

The same logic you have to apply across different platforms. What they may experience on one platform, they may not get to see on the other. You find it and fix it.

Test the screen orientations and other navigation elements like shortcuts, menus, in desktops, mobile devices, tablets, and across other small screen devices.

4. Testing- Make use of Real World Conditions

This is something that requires a little more hard work from you. If you precisely know who your audience is, then you have to check the networking conditions they operate under.

To make sure a website or a mobile application to work flawless, you have to look beyond your DevOps team. In this circumstance, it’s your marketing team who can give you valuable data that would allow you work on your website designs and improve customer experience under challenging real-world conditions.

5. Make use of the Right Testing Platforms

Across the geographies, people are using different devices, and irrespective what device they use or which platform they operate on, developers have to ensure optimal viewing experience, simple scrolling, minimal browser resizing, and easy navigation.

Since there are a lot of devices available, developers must keep the websites optimized for the one that is latest in the market and used by the most. Android, iPad, Blackberry, people are using different devices and as a businessman, you challenge lies in giving maximum mobile coverage with error-free appearance and good functionality.

Whatever may be the numbers, but developers must initially focus on making a website with mobile-first design and then gradually veer towards optimizing for other platforms.