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Guide to Web Application Testing

By Vivek Mannotra, Community Contributor -

The Internet, World Wide Web (WWW) or simply the Web, is the world’s most revolutionary information technology and application development platform. The world economy depends on the web as the number of internet users has risen globally over the past few years, as seen below. According to Statista, as of April 2023, there were 5.18 billion internet users worldwide, which amounted to 64.6 percent of the global population.

Statista Web Users in 2023 for web testing

The most straightforward way to conceptualize it is a network of interconnected nodes called servers and clients, exchanging data over well-defined protocols like TCP/IP, HTTP, FTP, etc. When building for the web as per today’s industry standards, it is vital to have an updated and relevant stack of tools with an architecture that supports CI/CD and QA environments

Structure of Web Applications

A web application or website is a package loaded on the client side containing multiple layers of interdependent modules built on the core web technologies:

  • HTML: Hypertext markup language, or HTML, is the tag-based document marking system that defines the structure and individual components of what is compiled into the Document Object Model or DOM.
  • CSS: Cascading style sheet or CSS is the native style description framework used to identify and style different parts of the DOM into the visible area of the page. It selects elements by id, class, and relation to other DOM elements. 
  • JavaScript: JS is a high-level interpreted scripting language upon which all the dynamic behavior of the application is scripted and executed.

These core technologies are augmented with layers of other technologies to increase functional capability. From popular JavaScript frameworks like Angular, React, and Vue, to CSS pre/post processors like Less, Sass, and other HTML templating engines, the domain of technologies related to the web is truly vast.

Besides the front-end layer, in most applications, there is also a backend or server-side layer with APIs built on micro-services and databases, which hold all the data and business logic and abstract all the information into relevant contracts that the front-end can access via HTTP methods, with proper request and credentials.

Structure of Web Applications

Image Source

Depending on the app, developers might prefer specific approaches to the application structure like:

  • Single-Page app refers to a web app with a single document model within which all functionality is contained. It involves much functional logic being packaged and sent to the client’s computer with appropriate security and performance optimizations. Some famous examples are Gmail, Facebook, GitHub, etc.
  • Multiple Page app: Most commonly used structure, where the application is divided into multiple pages, accessible through various route URLs. Server-side app frameworks and template engines are used to build such applications, and they have an inherent security advantage over SPAs.
  • Progressive Web App: This is a modern way of using WebView providers on handheld devices to run web applications as native apps using service workers, manifests, and an app shell. In case one is looking to test a PWA, read this.

No matter what approach you take, implementing test plans at the level of development and beyond to ensure an efficient and continuous DevOps workflow is equally crucial for all. 

How to test Web Applications?

A good website testing plan includes a strategy, test objectives, approach, schedule, and environment. The test strategy should be designed to ensure that the website meets the business requirements and is fit for purpose.

The web application testing should include:

  1. Unit Testing: Testing parts of the codebase through unit tests. Read more about unit testing in Javascript, and Python. With the advent of no-code/low-code and AI-based tools, you can automate parts of the Unit test writing process.
  2. Integration Testing: Involves testing various parts of the website code as interdependent functions or modules through test code or other tools triggered as the code is merged with the parent repository. All primary cloud hosts like Github, Gitlab, and Bitbucket have native CI/CD integration support.
  3. System Testing: Testing the workings of the website at the level of user interface and features like login, signup, and other supported flows, which validate parts of the website working together. Selenium is the most widely adopted automation framework for web browsers.
  4. Acceptance Testing: This is usually the final testing stage in which the fully assembled application with data is tested in a live or pre-production environment. This involves testing with actual or mock users. Automated visual testing is the most efficient way to manage the change approval process on a rapidly changing product UI.
  5. Performance Testing: With increased users, it becomes vital to ensure that the servers can handle the request loads at peak usage times. Also, maintaining end-to-end security at each point of contact between the website and users properly using HTTP headers and metadata analysis.

Role of Browsers in Web Application Testing

All websites need another application, known as the ‘browser’, running on top of a device’s operating system. Web browsers are built by many companies and are usually free. Web browsers are essential in making websites accessible to users and helping developers with comprehensive tools to test and debug various aspects of a web application under development.

Screenshot 2023 06 15 at 10.52.55 AM

Desktop internet browsers Market Share  in the USA from Jan 2015 to Jan 2023

Most browsers provide development tools as an additional interface to developers who want to peek under the hood and access the inner workings of a rendered web app. These tools can generally be accessed by right-clicking on a page and selecting the option ‘inspect’.

  • A built-in device toolbar also lets you simulate user interface scenarios across various devices with preset resolution profiles, network throttle, zoom level, screen rotation, and the ability to enter custom resolution for testing responsiveness.
  • With Chrome Developer Tools from BrowserStack, you can debug iOS and Android websites from your computer without additional setup.

Testing Local Deployments of Web Applications

Before you move to set up a live testing flow in a browser, it is also recommended to implement a unit testing workflow in your application to ensure a robust and clean codebase.

  • When developers make a website, they check all changes and updates in a browser on their work computer.
  • After preliminary functional testing, the next important part is cross-browser compatibility testing, which gives us a sense of how the app looks and performs on different device-browser combinations.

Because a developer has limited access to the range of all possible devices, it becomes a bit trickier to capture some bugs during web application testing. Even though the web has well-defined standards and specifications, discrepancies in the interpretation of different browsers arise due to different implementations in the underlying browser engine and JS interpreter. Overall a modern web browser provides a loaded toolkit to open up and debug any aspect of the application.

But, Browserstack lets you link up your local or staging environment to more than 3000+ device-browser combinations and execute tests, making your web application testing feedback much more valuable. See how you can set it up in these simple steps:

  • Download the Browserstack desktop tool from the Live dashboard local testing section.
  • Install the plugin on the development computer and enable network access.

BrowserStack Live Local testing

  • Refresh the BrowserStack Live session; the local testing section status should change to green from red.

live console

  • Open the local console and debug your app from there.

Test In Your Local Environments

Automated Web Application Testing

The main goal is to eliminate the need to manually validate functional updates after changes are made to the application. The preferred approach is using modern test automation frameworks to run tests sequenced while generating appropriate reports.

BrowserStack Automate lets you work with leading frameworks like Selenium, Cypress, Playwright, and Puppeteer. Despite differences in individual use cases, the overall web testing workflow includes:

  • Installing command-line interface (CLI) and other dependencies in your local development environment.
  • Connect to your BrowserStack account using the access keys in your application.
  • Invoke the first test run on local deployment.
  • Configuring the test suite and validating on local setup.
  • Run cross-browser tests with the automation test.
  • Migrate the test suite to higher environments.

BrowserStack Automate for Web App testing

The Automate dashboard helps visualize the status of builds, sessions, queues, etc. Here are some more benefits of using it:

  • Once scripted properly, your tests can be scaled easily to cover many device scenarios.
  • Ability to test local, staging, and production environments seamlessly.
  • Integration with CI/CD tools and platforms helps streamline the dev process.
  • Highly configurable at the level of code.
  • All information is accessible through the cloud platform.

The Automate API offers more functionality and access to information like plans, projects, build sessions, etc.

Try BrowserStack Automate

Automated Visual Testing

From the user’s perspective, the application is a visual experience. The journey a user takes on a website is defined by the design specifications set by the business analysis and design processes. To ensure that the developed website stays true to the design goals, one has to ensure a proper regiment of visual testing and approval of changes to the code base.

This is where the QA team plays a leading role. The process of visual testing used to be primarily manual about a decade ago, but now, it is increasingly being automated. One efficient way to implement visual testing is by using Percy visual testing in your stack, which offers a user-friendly and tightly integrated way to perform visual tests on the CI/CD line.

Let’s look at the quick steps to implement web app testing:

  • Create a project on the Percy App dashboard.
  • Follow the integration guide applicable to your programming framework and use the token provided for linking accounts and validation.
  • Install project dependency on your local environment as per the guide
  • Build and run your application, and check logs for updates on screenshot events.
  • After the build is complete, go back to the dashboard; there, you should see your build listed.
  • If you click on any entry, you will be taken to the review section, where you can see the difference between an explorer and other features of the Percy dashboard.

Percy for Web App Visual testing

  • Once your build is showing on the dashboard, you can tweak the project to add more features like webhook, Slack, repository integrations, and the ability to change the browser in which the snapshots are taken.
  • You can add your team members and configure it for the production environment, where each build can be evaluated for visual differences, and the team can collaborate on approvals.
  • After you manually lay out a clear testing path on your local machine and implement automated visual testing to control UI changes, your website is good to go to production or live environment.
  • Now experience the future of native app testing with advanced visual automation that supercharges your productivity with faster release cycles.

Guide to Web Application Testing

But that does not mean that the role of testing is over. If your test cases are correctly configured, and your CI/CD flow runs smoothly, you will have to spend less time on validations and error checks and more time developing new features. To ensure a healthy testing system, keep in mind these points:

  • Test runs at all stages, and levels must be monitored because automation will help you execute and detect errors. Still, to understand the severity of the defect and then find a way to resolve it, we need proper communication and allocation within the team.
  • Dashboards provide a great way to monitor the status of builds and test runs, but having too many separate dashboards will lead to difficulty in tracking and also waste time, so it is suggested that integration of layers, wherever possible, should be implemented.
  • Any change in business or design specifications has to flow from the leadership to the development process and finally into the test scripts. In a healthy dev process, the flow of information from top to bottom is seamless and quick.

In Conclusion,

Many different approaches to web application testing with combinations of browsers and devices can be applied. Still, with cloud-based technologies, web application testing has become more feature-rich and reliable for large-scale enterprises. With Enterprise Test Automation, collaborating with multiple teams for building test plans supercharges the output as all members can access shared resources on the dashboard.

Enterprise test automation covers:

  • Business-critical website or app features that require Continuous Monitoring.
  • Features and modules that are too complex to test manually, AKA ones prone to human error.
  • Unit tests to verify how a function or class operates in isolation.
  • Integration tests verify how several components work with each other.
  • End-to-end testing to verify user journeys and transactions across multiple software components, whether at the UI or API level.
  • Performance tests that evaluate the software’s stability, scalability, and availability under various levels of traffic, load, etc.

Contact Us For Enterprise-Grade Testing

Tags
Automation Testing Cross browser testing Website Testing

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