Top 5 Tools For Quickly Testing Website Layouts
Website recognition is based on the attitude the user has formed after visiting the website. Deciding on the right layout is one of the first steps in web design. A website layout serves as the foundation of your site, it can greatly impact how communicative and intuitive you are online.
So, it is important to make sure that the website layout displays correctly on all the different devices with various resolutions. Because the first thing which is visible after going to a website is a visual layout: various buttons, fields, menus, sidebars, etc.
Before proceeding further let's first understand what a website layout is and why it is important?
A website’s layout is the key component of web design. It is a framework that determines the arrangement of all visual elements on a webpage. It dictates text and image presentation on the page, which element will draw the most attention, and the overall visual balance of the site. All of these play a role in a better user experience. Because of the visual significance, a website layout can enhance a website’s usability.
The website layout should look nice, but more importantly, it should provide for the user's needs as efficiently as possible. visiting difficult web pages users will not wait to jump to another website.
A successful website can be defined by its layout. With the right layout, the content can shine. But getting the wrong one can be crowding, hard to read, and uninspiring. As a result, the visitors will get confused and end up with a bad experience.
Why a website layout is important
A visual layout is important to support the goals of the website. Because a website’s goals are expressed through content, a layout design describes how to deliver that content effectively. Following are the common functions that a website layout can serve:
A good website layout organizes information so it fits together to display in sequence, highlights or emphasizes the most important elements, and makes the user’s tools intuitive to find and use.
A good website layout makes the page visually attractive, leads the user’s eyes towards what matters the most, and inspires them to navigate to the following section in order of significance.
A good website layout plays a role in branding too.
Process of layout testing
Web testing of layouts is important to ensure the smooth operation of the site. It allows your online platform to work smoothly and properly without failure. The process of layout testing is divided into several parts among them the most important are
Testing of the visual part;
Cross-browser and cross-platform testing of a website.
So here is a question: what is it and why is this testing important. So let's get the answer first.
Putting it simply it is the sense of testing searching for details. If you Remember the human error factor you can understand that even the most skillful layout designer can miss out on objectivity while working. That is why it is important to automate testing for layout using automation tools.
Testing of visual parts means focussing on finding out the notable inconsistencies like broken blocks, and text incorrectly displayed on the website. It also includes determining online resources, resolution, reliability, and availability.
Testing the website layout on various devices, various screen sizes, and different browsers is challenging but it is a must to check the display of the pages on the most popular browsers and devices. The preferences of the users change with the available options, some may prefer Google Chrome while others may choose Mozilla Firefox. There are also Internet Explorer ( Windows), and Safari (MAC). it is hard to imagine if you have to test the layout of a website on Mobile, Tablet, and PC, you have to repeat the set of test cases for each device. Again it would be tiring and doubles the effort when you need to check for different browsers.
Therefore having so many choices it is important to check the availability, site design, fonts, colors, and functionality of each browser on different devices. So that the site appears and performs in any set of conditions the way it was intended to.
Installing all the browsers and buying all the devices is not possible but testing from a cloud is possible. As a solution to this, I have a list of top tools that will ease and make your layout testing possible. Let's check them out.
1. LambdaTest
LambdaTest is a cloud-based cross-browser testing platform to test the look of your website on different browsers, devices, and operating systems. LambdaTest with the integration of Selenium allows you to run automated Selenium scripts on LambdaTest’s scalable cloud grid.
It allows live interactive browser testing in the cloud on an online device farm of 3000+ real devices, browsers, and operating systems with their combinations to perform a test.
It also allows taking a screenshot of multiple browsers/devices of a given web page in just one click. This is very useful when you want to see how your website's pre-launch landing page looks across devices. Using this platform you can also record a video of your test and send it to your developer to identify bugs and fix them faster.
2. Endtest
Endtest can be regarded as an efficient tool to test cross-browser layouts and scripting errors for your website. This is an automated browser compatibility testing tool used to test a website and its elements in multiple browsers. It has the functionality and availability of real devices with the possibility of layout testing on a number of browsers and devices. It requires no setup; you can just start instant testing in the real device cloud.
3. Kobiton
Kobiton is one of the visual layout testing tools which ensures that your app looks and works as expected across all devices.
Its visual testing is optimized for mobile. The scriptless testing is possible with just one click. This tool helps in locating bugs and captures the visual differences between your app and website’s output for mobile viewers across different devices.
It allows you to compare your mobile app’s UX with other best apps to help make things better and eliminate anything that’s not helping it grow. That means it suggests the best possible practices for a great user experience.
You can start your visual testing with Kobiton with free trials.
4. Ghost Inspector
Ghost Inspector is a simple, convenient, and seamless testing tool that makes it easy to start visual layout testing and maintain every test with the codeless editor. As the application and website change, you can easily adjust the test steps by adding the new steps and removing the old ones. The steps can also be reordered quickly with the drag and drop option. It uses JavaScript steps to handle complex situations by custom code logic.
It has a wide array of features. like visual UI testing that helps automate test script creation and maintenance, reusable components, keyword-driven testing, parallel test execution on multiple browsers, operating systems, devices, and many more.
It is built to enable the users to write automated tests quickly in simple English, which means you don’t have to be a coding expert to use the tool. This platform provides both visual layout and functional testing.
5. Katalon Studio.
Katalon Studio is one of the most popular and most liked visual layout testing tools among mobile testing teams. It offers scalable web, API, mobile, and desktop testing. Katalon Studio is an easy-to-use tool for coding beginners. It can handle UI and code changes by adapting its self-healing mechanism. Its headless browser execution support on Chrome and Firefox facilitates faster feedback.
This tool helps in catching functional and visual issues that may go unnoticed in finding visual bugs. It provides the feature of minimal test maintenance with its page object model design pattern. The user also gets the advanced graphs option to visualize essential metrics and real-time notifications after each execution to create a better report.
Conclusion
Adding visual layout testing into the testing process leads to a successful application release. The correct tool helps the testes to deliver visually perfect applications quickly and consistently. It enables them to create websites and maintain their visual consistency by offering overall visual reviews and accurate results.
Uncovering hidden bugs is always challenging, especially when you have users connecting from various types of devices. But thanks to the above powerful tools, which will definitely improve your application quality and make your testing easy.
Author Bio: Vixit Raj is Product Growth and Marketing Specialist in LambdaTest : The Cross Browser Web App Testing Platform. An E&C engineering background & digital marketing domain experience of 5+ years has aroused his interest towards learning more about latest technology advancements, product marketing, coding and testing.
Welcome to our blog “CYBER SUGGEST“. Debmalya Datta is a professional Blogger, Developer, Social Media Influencer, Digital Marketer and Entrepreneur. He loves doing work which makes him happy, that’s why he choose Blogging and Educate people. You will love exploring educational stuff on our blog. Live your dreams as much as you can. Be a SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTER
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