Before a piece of software goes to market and becomes available for you to download, it will go through a very long process of testing to make sure that it is ready for people to use. During this time, the tools will be used on a variety of systems, under loads of different circumstances, and with several individuals, providing an insight into any problems which might need fixing.
When it comes to a website, though, a lot of people neglect the testing which needs to be done. To help you out with this, this post will be exploring the field of website testing, along with some of the tools which can be used to help you out.
Speed
Users won’t want to stick around for very long on a website which is too slow to use properly. In a world of instant everything, you need to make sure that your site is running nice and quickly, and there are loads of tools to help you with this. Google Pagespeed Insights can be a very powerful resource to those wanting to figure out where their site is going wrong. Along with this, though, you could also work to try the website on a range of devices, using slow internet connections like those found while roaming around.
With some testing complete, it should be nice and easy to figure out where your site could be improved. One of the most commonly bloated areas on a website will be the images being displayed. To make these smaller, it could be worth using a CDN which can host them for you, as they will be able to make your user’s loading times much faster. Along with this, optimizing images takes a little bit of time, and you may have to use tools like Adobe Fireworks if you want to have the very best results.
Compatibility
There are thousands of different device types on today’s market. From computers to mobile phones, your users could be using almost anything when they come to your website, and the experience needs to be quality across the board. In some cases, certain styles won’t work in different browsers, and you will have to use fallbacks to make sure that the site always looks good. If you are very unlucky, you may even find that a script doesn’t work with a certain type of user, and this will take the help of a skilled developer to fix.
Responsiveness
As a big part of the process of making a site compatible with devices around the world, responsiveness has to be considered. When you visit most websites on a mobile device, you will usually have a much different experience to those seeing it on a desktop, as the content will resize and arrange itself to look best on the screen size you’re using. Websites look very dated when they lack this sort of functionality. You can test this using the devices themselves, or by using online simulations which work to copy the behaviour of different electronics.
Errors
Most website errors will be completely hidden from the users visiting it, unless you’ve had them be spewed out by a script. This makes them seem unimportant, when, in reality, this can have a severe impact on your SEO, with Google getting annoyed with sites which are buggy. Thankfully, to start to tackle this, you can see all of the errors coming up on your website in the developer console which comes with your browser. In Google Chrome, this can be accessed by pressing Ctrl + Shift + C, giving you access to a detailed view of your site’s stability.
When you spot an error on your website, fixing it is likely to be on your mind, and it will be hard to rest until it has disappeared. In some cases, you may be able to fix the issue yourself. By searching for the error you see, you will get loads of guides and other resources which can guide you down the right path. When something is too complicated, it will be worth calling a developer, as it can be very easy to make things worse if you take the wrong steps to fix them. A lot of people make this mistake on their first website.
UX And Feedback
Finally, it’s time to think about the power of user testing, and how it can give you an insight into the usability of your website. You can find out more here about quality testing for apps and websites, giving you an idea of the sort of work which can be done to make sure that users like it. During this process, it could be hard to make sure that you’re using the right kind of tools and resources to help you. In most cases, having a professional to support you will be invaluable, making it well worth the time which you have to put into finding one.
As a big part of this, you will have to learn how to read feedback in a constructive way, while also ensuring that as many people as possible get the chance to have their say. You can handle this with some sessions before the website goes live, sending it to as many people as you can to get an idea of what they think.
Once the site is launched, though, you don’t have to stop, and will have the chance to get even more information about user experience. Loads of websites ask for feedback when you’re using them, and a surprising portion of people will be very happy to give it to you.
Hopefully, this post will inspire you to start working harder on the time you put into your website’s testing process. It can be hard to cover everything in this post, with a lot of people choosing to skip areas or forgetting what they have to do. In reality, though, this is one of the most important parts of development, and will have a huge impact on your site for all of the users coming to visit.