Updated April 4, 2023
Introduction to Responsive Testing Tool
Did you ever try to open a website on your laptop and the same on your mobile? Of course, everyone would have done it. Now just imagine, if the same resolution which is present in the laptop appears to the screen on mobile, won’t you just get tired of scrolling left, right up, down? Or if it the other way round, won’t you have a hard time reading the same on a laptop? Not just between mobile or laptop, even between two laptops, the screen size, the resolution of the screens would be quite different, and our website should have the capability to adapt to any kind of resolution it has been thrown at. This is where the Responsive Testing Tool comes into play for adjudging if our website can respond to different aspect ratios.
How does Responsive Testing Tool Work?
In this section let us start with some history of the responsive testing and then we would dive deeper into understanding responsive testing tools. In earlier times, developers used to build a website with components that were threshold to % relative to the viewport and that is when the philosophy of having the concept of “fluid design” came into the picture. Ethan Marcotte in one of his articles published on what Responsive design essentially means and from then on the entire viewpoint of looking at web designing changed and came to the concept of creating content for screens of all size, browser, orientation, and interaction modes. According to the latest trend, mobile browsing has already surpassed web browsing and with the current scenario in the picture, the market has over 9000 mobile devices each having their dimension and graphics capability and designing a fluid experience has become an inevitable part of website designing and so it’s testing.
Just form a very basic view of how it knows what kind of device the request has generated from, the server reads “m.sub-domains” to get the answer. And based on that developers designs the website. Now we would be wondering on what advantages responsive website development can bring to the table and answer that, let us say we have 100 different types of devices where the request has been generated from, do we design our website in accordance to all of them. Well no! This is the first advantage. On the other hand just assume if you had 100 of these websites developed, you would have to get 100 different domains to launch this and make changes to, but with responsive design there is just one domain required and the website adapts itself. The next advantage is the little or minimum maintenance required for Responsive design.
Components of Responsive Design
- Flexible layout: The website is built with a flexible grid that is capable of resizing itself by the layout dynamically.
- Media queries: Based on context, different styles are present and used based on the context of the orientation of the device, the viewpoint, etc.
- Flexible Media: When the viewports size changes dynamically, the media which is embedded also needs to adapt itself by the layout the entire content is shown.
So now when we have a fair idea of the elements we need to test for let us know the various aspects we need to look at while responsive testing .
- The alignment and display of the website should be consistent. In this aspect we need to make sure that the alignment and the display go hand in hand. For example, if the size of the text gets bigger in the respective measurement, the website shouldn’t misguide the alignment of the website. In doing so we can make sure to keep the aspect ratio of a display of the website is intact.
- Look at the text legibility. At all the viewports, the text needs to be looked at and rendered so that the text doesn’t overlap, neither it goes out of the aspect ratio, etc.
- Check to see if the text and images are within the containers. In this if some element of the website is surrounded by a block or border, we need to make sure that they don’t break at any point in the testing.
- The images can be resized and displayed as needed. If the user wants to resize any image, the website should be capable of resizing the same and display it.
- In cases of data tables on the website we need to make sure that the user can scroll horizontally and vertically without any hassle and without breaking the display.
- We should also check for the usability of navigating through links and menus on all types of devices.
- Landscape and portrait orientations should not break any of the points above.
Tools that are widely used in Responsive Testing Tool
Now, we would go through some of the tools which are widely used in the industry.
1. Chrome Developer Tools
This is a tool that is like a go-to tool for any website developer as it gives the capability of understanding how each layout will span out on the website and provide you an actual look and feel of the website post changes.
2. DesignModo
This has the capability of testing it by a device name and make you feel how your website would “adapt” on those screens. This might help testers to understand if some font looks “Bossy/Weighty” in a chrome versus in Safari.
3. CrossBrowserTesting
This tool enables testers to understand if our website can easily adapt to the orientation, layout, screen size, etc. This is just another alternative to the earlier ones and not much difference in usability.
Conclusion
To summarize, responsive testing has become an inevitable part of website testing and makes sure that there is fluidity maintained on the website. Some of the tools might also use the concept of using a breakpoint in determining the fluidity. For example, one design is used in the top half of the page and another on the bottom half to ensure adaptiveness. Lastly, we would like to mention that collection of drops of water in a glass can be used for drinking, whereas in the ocean to enjoy the beauty. The primary element is the same, water (H2O), only the container changes and nothing else.
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