Guide to Testing Progressive Web Applications

The development of technology has made it possible to provide improved user experiences. Today, a startling 2.5 billion people worldwide use cell phones. These smartphone applications are capable of offering rich and customized user experiences by making maximum use of the hardware and screen real estate available. It used to be assumed that creating a mobile app is a need for an internet business. Because progressive web apps have been implemented successfully, we are currently seeing a paradigm change.

Progressive Web Apps: What Are They?

Progressive Web Apps (PWA) is a concept that first appeared in 2015 and is a collection of design guidelines. Today’s browsers can offer functionalities that are typically used by native apps on different operating systems. The PWA is covered by the design guidelines that instruct developers on how to utilize the temporary features of the browser.

Google has distilled the qualities that make up a PWA down to the three main ones listed below:

Reliability

Modern browsers have a feature called the service workers. Regular websites need the network connection to be working correctly to load the page and provide service. However, a service worker can load the webpage instantly with some stored content irrespective of the network condition.

This improves reliability as all the users would be able to see some of the page components loaded immediately and with some data as well. The pre-caching of information will allow the web application to provide functionalities even in the absence of a network connection.

Speed

An important key performance parameter for just a Progressive Web App is speed. Speed is the speed at which a web page will download and give the user the data they are looking for. According to a Google study of site speed, mobile users will leave a site if it takes longer than three seconds to load.

PWAs adhere to the concepts of building simple, light elements that load quickly and design the website thus that there are no clumsy scroll requirements to access the right information. This helps to ensure users aren’t confused due to the lengthy loading time.

Interesting Situation

PWAs may now accomplish things that weren’t previously conceivable. Engaging experiences are always attractive to mobile phone users.

On the smartphone’s home screen, a PWA can be placed. a characteristic that was exclusive to mobile applications.

The PWA can offer full-screen interactions similar to those seen in applications without eating up space that could be used by the web page due to browser tabs.

The PWAs may be created using a feature of the browser called the web app manifest that enables the web page to load and appear in specific ways that give the impression that it is an app.

Progression Web Applications Testing

Testing PWAs is essential, much like testing other web apps. Testing a PWA, however, is very unlike testing conventional web apps.

In conventional web applications, the functionality offered by the application would be tested. The behavior must be predictable and consistent. Newer methods of testing include tests to verify if they render correctly on various mobile devices. But with the advent of progressive web apps, cross-browser testing methods have significantly changed. This is why.

A PWA must abide by the rules that define its characteristics in addition to verifying the application’s features and operation. This entails testing across a wide range of browsers and devices using both manual and software-based methods.

Let’s see how a progressive web app is tested:

1. Reliability testing

The ability to serve pages via HTTPS is a need for PWA dependability. You can make sure that all of the web pages are delivered over HTTPS by using a tool like Lighthouse.

Lighthouse may be used for more than merely evaluating the dependability of a website, as we will see in the next sections.

2. Testing manually

Manual testing on numerous different browsers and devices is necessary for this kind of testing. LambdaTest offers real-time cross-browser testing for more than 1000 different types of PCs and mobile devices.

The ability to add the PWA to the home screen like other applications is one of its key behaviors. The web app should start acting more like an app and less like a website once it is placed on the home screen. This applies to how it launches as well as its capacity to provide certain material even in the absence of a network connection.

3. Testing for local functionality using software

For some of the most popular devices and some of the most popular browsers, manual testing is advised. However, you may utilize the program Lighthouse to assess some of the native-like capabilities as it’s hard to test across all browsers and platforms.

For instance, Lighthouse may be used to test for offline functionality and the loading of websites for offline mode. The program looks for the information that instructs browsers what to do when the PWA is launched in offline mode while examining these characteristics.

4. maximizing the usage of URLs

As we’ve seen, a progressive web app may have an app-like interface and functionality. But one must keep in mind that it’s still only a website. All pages must thus have a URL that can be shared on social media. The presence of URLs on every page guarantees accurate website indexing by search engine crawlers.

There may be some stuff with really similar URLs. These situations frequently occur in a PWA and add a canonical tag to the page’s header. This would serve as a signal to the search engines indicating that the material on both sites is identical. The term “Canonical URLs” refers to them.

Summary

The online expansion of several organizations has been significantly impacted by the emergence of PWAs. It has increased user engagement and, in certain situations, contributed to the growth of brand trust.

We have gone through some of the essential testing procedures needed to confirm that the progressive web app complies with the guidelines and requirements. However, a few smaller things might enhance the PWA user experience even more. Popular tools may be used to evaluate features like Search Engine Optimization, load time tweaking, and rapid load strategies.

As we’ve seen, manual cross-browser testing makes up the majority of the PWA testing procedure. The cost of doing these tests manually might be greatly decreased with the use of a few tools.

To know more about Progressive web app testing you should check out Testrig Technologies since we are capable of testing web apps efficiently and with 100% reliability.