Importance of Compatibility Testing Before Deploying your Product

In the software industry, a lot of new developments keep happening every few weeks or months. With such rapid progress, there is a need to ensure compatibility across different platforms. With a wide customer base, this has become a necessity. A look at the number of cross-platform frameworks that have come up in recent years is a testament to this fact.

What is Compatibility Testing?

Compatibility testing deals with delivering a software product so that it works well across different available versions, configurations, and platforms based on user requirements. It is one of the non-functional requirements and hence focuses on delivering consistent and high-quality performance.

Generally, compatibility testing includes the following tests:

• Hardware Compatibility
• User Experience
• Network Compatibility
• OS / Database Compatibility
• External Devices, Software

5 Key Points About Compatibility Testing

1. It is Compulsory

Compatibility testing needs to be done. Any project that needs quality testing has to go through an extra step of testing, and only then can it pass the testing criteria. This adds up to the project costs, nonetheless, it is mandatory that compatibility is ensured, and the product is tested against different operating environments.

2. Compatibility from the Beginning

Your project team must start thinking about compatibility testing from the beginning. Being a Non-Functional Requirement, there is a tendency to just check it at the last minute, and a lot of projects run into many complex issues.

Compatibility testing can help draw a line between successful and unsuccessful projects. It is necessary to check that the initial compatibility requirements and the required tests to ensure they have been performed.

This is done so that the product’s scope is met, and the product works well in the environment it is most needed.

It is important to make sure that the different parts of a product interact with each other, and this is where compatibility testing proves very useful. Make sure that back-end infrastructure supports the product features, and there are no issues with the operating environment.

The best way is to review compatibility and functionality requirements together as one to ensure compatibility testing is done better.

3. Selecting the Methodology – Agile or Not

Planning of the compatibility tests solely depends on the project and the team’s comfort level while working on the project. But, there cannot be a compromise in doing the compatibility test.

When going with scrum, the obvious choice would be to do the relevant compatibility tests as per the sprint cycle. This requires planning and setting up the appropriate infrastructure to help with the in-sprint testing. The effectiveness of this method depends on the scope of the scrum.

For example, if there is a need to redesign UIUIThe user interface, in the industrial design field of human-computer interaction, is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. of your company’s website, then the scope of compatibility testing with the available infrastructure is,

• Browser Compatibility – Check whether web pages render correctly across web browsers (Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Google Chrome).
• User Experience – Check if web pages follow responsive design.
• OS Compatibility – Check if web pages run well on mobile OS such as Android and iOS.
• Hardware Compatibility – Check if the hardware is capable of handling the processing requirements.
• Network Compatibility – Check if the network is capable of handling the bandwidth needs.
• Peripheral Systems Compatibility – Check if web pages interact with the back-end systems seamlessly.

When this same scope situation is applied to a scrum team while delivering web pages, it is possible to set up the test environment for the team relevant to each sprint cycle. This is the best scenario and then aids in conducting all the needed compatibility tests.

However, in most cases, it becomes difficult to secure the total test environment for the team to perform all the relevant tests. This is especially true for projects that might be more complex than redesigning the UI of web pages.

4. Absolute Coverage Not Required

When redesigning the UI of your webpage, your customers can be using older versions of the browser. So, it becomes important to consider how to deal with such outliers while performing compatibility tests.

If a small minority of customers are using such outdated versions, one way to resolve this situation is to get this situation sorted through help desk support. The helpdesk team can talk to the customers and describe how to fix the problem.

Another approach is to prompt a dialog box with a call-to-action that suggests your visitor upgrade the current browser or use a different browser. In some cases, it might even be necessary to block out customers until they upgrade to the supported version.

The key is to plan out a strategy so that you cover 95 – 98% of your customers at all times. The remaining 2 – 5% of the customers can be handled by helpdesk support which is both cost-effective and a time-saving method of dealing with such issues.

5. Forward and Backward compatibility

When designing or building any website, software, or a mobile app, the aim is to build for the future. The ideal situation is to build a system that can transcend time and always remain relevant without needing any updates. However, this is impossible. 

The fact of the matter is that you should always spend a considerable amount on the upkeep and maintenance of your product. Phones from 5 years ago are no longer supported because they do not run the latest OS configurations and hardware specifications.

It is good practice to aim to support the previous and the next two generations of computing environments when it comes to backward and forward compatibility respectively.  

Final Thoughts

In summary, compatibility testing ensures that your project requirements are met in time and that the quality of your project is enhanced. By ensuring that it is done, you can be assured that the system works well in specified operating environments and various configurations. It is recommended that compatibility testing be done early on in the project along with functional requirements, to reap maximum rewards and benefits from this process. 

At TechAffinity, we have a highly experienced testing team that makes sure your products are of the highest quality and according to market standards. In case of further queries, feel free to send them to media@techaffinity.com or schedule a meeting with our team.