How to test your website

As the final stage of website development, testing plays a vital role in the process of creating high-quality software. After this stage, a customer is provided with a ready project without errors, with good readability, perceived ease, convenience, and reliability.

The basic rule of website testing is to show users how simple and logical the project is, how easy to find the required information. The more complex the site, the more time it takes to test it and debug it. Depending on the specifics of the project, up to 50% of the total budget and time resources can be allocated to the testing stage.

In order to properly organize the testing of the website, a specially developed methodology is required. The verification of your website is carried out according to this methodology. Testing can be done in many ways, but do not forget about the process itself and the testing strategy. The sequence of your actions depends on it.

So, let’s consider the main stages you have to pass to test your site.

Documentation testing

We should start with the preparatory phase - test the documentation. The tester reviews the received documentation (analyzes the defined site functionality, examines the final layouts of the site, and makes a website test plan for further testing).

The main artifacts related to the website requirements and testing are analyzed at this stage: Requirements, Test Plan, Test Cases, Traceability Matrix.

Website functionality testing

Functional testing is aimed to ensure each website function operates in accordance with the requirement specification. Website testing of the functionality shows “What the system does”. Let’s try to create a checklist for your website functionality testing.

Links testing:

• Outbound links

• Internal links correctness

• There are no links leading to the same page

• The links that are used to send e-mails to site admins

• If there are pages that are not referenced

• There are no broken links

Forms testing for all pages:

• The input data validity

• Allowed values for the data field

• Invalid input values for the data field

• Options for forms in which deletion or any other modification of data is possible

Cookies testing:

• Test website with disabled cookies

• Test website with enabled cookies

• Verify the cookie is encrypted before being written to the user’s machine

• Check the security aspects when removing the cookies

• If the cookies have a duration of action, then test whether they are active in the specified period of time

HTML/CSS validation:

• HTML syntax errors

• Verify the site is available for search machines

• Verify your web page has an accurate site map in both XML and HTML format

Useful tools that could be used for the functional website testing: Selenium, Linux Test Project, JUnit, Sprinter by Hewlett Packard Entreprise (manual testing), Browserstack (both automated and manual testing), Usersnap (manual testing).

Usability testing

Usability testing aims to evaluate your web pages by testing with representative users. It helps define the user's ability to operate, prepare for input, and interpret the output of the site.

Navigation testing includes the following verifications:

• All pages of your site are easy to understand and use

• Buttons, shapes, and fields are convenient for usage

• Main menu can be accessed from all pages

Content testing checklist:

• No grammar and spelling mistakes

• Images are placed properly with proper sizes

• Verify the color palette of the site and font sizes

• The content should be informative, easy to understand, structured, and logically linked

• Descriptions are clear and contain correct information

Finally, to evaluate the usability of your web portal, simply answer the following questions:

• Is your website easy to understand and convenient?

• Is it easy to navigate?

• What impression does it make on the user?

• Is there anything superfluous or unnecessary?

Tools that can be used for the usability testing: User Zoom, Loop11.

UI (User Interface) testing

User Interface (UI) testing is intended to verify if the graphic user interface of your website meets the specifications.

Here are some verifications of the website UI test:

• Comply with graphical interface standards

• SCreen elements evaluation: layout, colors, fonts, font sizes, labels, text boxes, text formatting, captions, buttons, lists, icons, links

• Test with different screen resolutions

• Localized versions test: accuracy of the translation (multilanguage, multicurrency), check the length of interface element names, etc.

• Test the graphical user interface on target devices: smartphones and tablets.

Useful tools for UI testing: FitNesse, iMacros, Jubula,.

Compatibility (Configuration) testing

Compatibility (Configuration) testing is performed to check your website with each of the supported software systems and hardware configurations:

• OS Configuration

• Browser Configuration

• Database Configuration

Cross-platform testing gives a possibility to evaluate the work of your site in various OS (both desktop and mobile): Windows, iOS/Mac OS, Linux, Android, and BlackBerry etc.

Cross-browser website testing methods help to verify the proper work of the site in different browsers: Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Opera etc.

Database testing is performed to ensure the correct work of your site in various database configurations: Oracle, DB2, MySql, MSSQL Server, Sybase.

Printing compatibility also should be included into your website test plan:

• Verify the fonts, page graphics, page alignment of the printed document

• Ensure all pages of your website fit into the paper size and the other sizes defined in the printing option

You can try the tools like BrowserStack, CrossBrowserTesting by Smart Bear, Litmus, Browsera, Ghostlab for the Compatibility testing of your site.

Performance testing

Performance testing is used to determine how a system performs in terms of responsiveness and stability under a certain load. Performance website testing methods contain:

• Test site at or beyond the limits of its workload (Stress testing)

• Test site at increasing workload (Load testing)

• Test the ability to work within or above the established period (Stability testing)

• Test website performance by increasing the data volume in the database (Volume testing)

• Test website performance when multiple users simultaneously login to it (Concurrency testing)

• Test site when the additional workload is given continuously (Endurance testing)

• Test page load speed

Useful tools for perfomance testing: Apache JMeter, HP LoadRunner, Silk Performer from Micro Focus, WebLOAD, and Gatling.

Security testing

Security testing is executed to verify how the system protects data. You can simulate the malicious source attack to evaluate the security level of your site (Penetration testing).

Another kind of security testing, Vulnerability testing, dives the possibility to figure out the total quantum of involved risks.

Some verifications for the security testing:

• Test the unauthorized access to secure pages is not possible

• Verify sessions are automatically closed after long user inactivity

• Test SSL security functions

• Check how the captcha works using automatic scripts

• Test the restricted files are not downloadable without appropriate access

• Test there is no access to user's data with wrong password or username

You can use the tools like Veracode, Google Nogotofail, and SQL Map for the security testing of your site.

Change related testing

Change related testing has two main reasons:

• Ensuring all detected bugs have been successfully fixed (Re-testing or Confirmation testing). In a few words, you should run the test cases that originally detected the bugs again and this time they should pass without any problems.

• Ensuring no new defects have appeared after the changes (Regression testing). Besides the test cases which previously detected bugs, it also contains test cases checking all functionalities of your site.

The tools often used for changes tracking Selenium, HP Quick Test Professional, TestComplete, TestDrive, SoapUI.

Mobile-friendly testing

As you have read, some of the website verifications are related to the mobile version of your site. Nowadays, the number of people, who use only mobile devices for the Internet is constantly increasing. That is why it is quite important to ensure your website is mobile-friendly.

Here is what you can test on mobile:

• Verify the smartphones and tablets site resolutions

• Ensure the site navigation is simple

• Optimize the mobile loading time of your site

• Ensure buttons are large enough to tap on them on mobile

• Optimize all images size

• Don’t use Flash and pop-ups

• Use the mobile compatible content structure

• Ensure your phone number is one click away from being dialed

• Verify the website can access your location through GPS

Useful tools for mobile-friendly testing: BrowserStack, Perfecto Mobile Continuous Quality Lab, Android Studio emulator, Google’s Page Speed Online etc.

Beta testing

Beta testing – the final, pre-release stage of testing. As a rule, it is done by end-users and people out of the development team.

Beta testing puts your site in the hands of real users outside of your team in order to discover any weak points from the user’s perspective, that you would not want to have in a released version of the website.

Tools like HockeyApp, Ubertesters, and TestFlight are the worldwide popular platforms for beta testing.