Essentials of Responsive Design Testing

Before you release your website into the wild (the internet), you need to make sure that your users can view and use it flawlessly on multiple devices, especially mobile devices.

Why?

80% of users used a mobile device to search the internet in 2019.

US mobile search ad spending was estimated at 28.12 Billion in 2019.

Numbers don’t lie. Your website needs to be rendered perfectly on a multitude of devices. And since a new device pops up in the market every few months, it is not easy to keep up. Unless you can buy every device as soon as it is released, your website will face issues with its responsive design.

Since responsive design testing is a non-negotiable part of website development, here are a few essentials that you should know:

Which devices should you test on?

You cannot test the responsive design on every possible device (desktop and mobile), unless your organization can spend millions procuring, maintaining and updating devices at regular intervals. Do some research. Figure out which devices your target audience is most likely to use, and test primarily on those.

Use a responsive checker when you can.

Of course, testing the responsive design on the maximum number of devices is always better. In the absence of an in-house device farm, find an online responsive checker to do the job. Basically, it is an online tool that lets you input your website URL, and displays how it will appear across the viewports of multiple, latest devices. Needless to say, choose a responsive checker that tests the website on real devices.

Ensure that every aspect of your website has passed responsive design testing. Remember that close to half of the mobile users will switch to your competitor’s product if they have a bad experience with your mobile site. You cannot afford to take a chance on user experience, which makes responsive testing one of the most important steps in website testing.