Compatibility Testing

In Compatibility Testing we primarily focus on testing if the application works coherently across multiple different devices and environments.

In the case of Web Applications, we check if the application works on multiple different browsers and different versions. Device and Screen size may also be included in these tests to make sure that the application appears and works coherently across most device or screen sizes - hence it may also sometimes include checking how Responsive the web application is.

Since the testing scope can be quite broad by default, we need to define the scope before moving onwards to testing. In case of testing web applications, the first step is to make a list of all the browsers and their respective versions which we want to cover in our tests. Apart from that, we can also mention all the device sizes which we would like to test.

For instance, following is a list is compatibility requirements for our chat application:

Browsers and Versions

1. Google Chrome
   • Latest version
   • Two previous versions
2. Mozilla Firefox
   • Latest version
   • Two previous versions
3. Microsoft Edge
   • Latest version
   • Two previous versions

Devices and Screen Sizes

1. Desktop
   • 1920x1080 (Full HD)
   • 1366x768 (HD)
   • 1440x900 (WXGA+)
2. Tablets
   • iPad (10.2-inch)
   • Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 (11-inch)
3. Mobile Phones
   • iPhone 12 (6.1-inch)
   • iPhone 13 Pro Max (6.7-inch)
   • Samsung Galaxy S21 (6.2-inch)
   • Google Pixel 5 (6-inch)

After defining the requirements, we can simply write and execute test cases for checking the basic functionality in each of the browsers and then for each screen size.