How does your website look on Android and iOS devices? Do all your navigation features work on PC-based browsers? Will your media play on Apple devices?
Your users shouldn’t have to answer these questions for you. The best way to get a handle on your user experience is to test web pages through cross-browser compatibility tools.
These four utilities can simulate dozens of different browser environments, so you can ensure that your audiences get the best experience possible, before your website goes live.
1. BrowserShots
Do you want to see how any website looks across an enormous array of current and obsolete browsers? This web app enables you to view image screenshots of any URL through the lens of dozens of browsers for Linux, Windows, or Mac.
You can travel back in time, and see what it’s like to experience your website on a computer that hasn’t been updated in years. Or check off browsers that are only currently relevant, so you know how your website looks on present technology.
2. Browsera
While BrowserShots takes a surface level approach to compatibility testing, Browsera delves into your coding to find JavaScript errors, examine dynamic content, and check content behind login walls.
The free membership gives you access to cross-browser testing for up to 25 pages a month, with limited site crawling, JavaScript testing, and issue detection features. This app can prove to be indispensible for identifying issues that lead to a poor user experience.
3. Browserling
This quirky web app is just plain fun to use. The layout is a hodgepodge of illustrations designed to look like a sketchbook version of a web tool.
Just type in your URL, choose a popular browser platform, and select the version you wish to test. Click on “Run” and you’ll get a clear view of what your website looks like in the selected browser version.
The free Browserling plan lets you preview websites for three-minute sessions. Make sure to use this app to test the user experience across the most common browsers used to access your webpage.
4. Sauce Labs
The manual cross-browsers test uses virtual machines to help you envision what a website looks like in several different browsers on a variety of computers and mobile devices.
Choose from a variety of iOS or Android versions, along with desktop browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, Opera, or Safari. The Sauce Labs cross-browser testing tool covers more than 300 different platform combinations.
Professional web developers and designers strive to make the user experience uniform across platforms, so everyone can enjoy the same level of exceptional performance. Cross-compatibility tests can help you identify coding or content issues that make your website difficult to view on some platforms.
These apps are indispensible as you strive to create a winning online presence.