Design Agency Cuts Build Time by 50% Since Implementing BrowserStack

THE CHALLENGE

Inability to quickly test across the growing number of potential browser and operating system combinations.

Leaf Design in Toronto, Canada is a five-person web design agency. As part of the development process, President Ian Chapman ensures everyone is involved in QA before launching their client’s new websites.

Initially, the Leaf team ran old versions of Internet Explorer on virtual machines, but as new versions of browsers and operating systems flooded the market, Chapman and his team scrambled to keep up.

“It started to become overwhelming for us to organize all the IT infrastructure,” Chapman says, pointing to a need for more equipment, more licenses, and more time. “It became this horrible period of developing for a few proprietary browsers versus what was good for our customers.” Before long, the Leaf Design team was spending almost as much time managing storage capacity, virtual machines, and manual browser testing as they were designing websites.

Assembling a patchwork of solutions, Chapman was considering significantly increasing his hardware investment just to keep up. Determined to find a solution, he discovered BrowserStack.

“When I realized BrowserStack was not an emulator, but the real deal using real devices, I was in. It gave us the ability to test specific variations of operating systems and browser combinations quickly, without the overhead of our own equipment. Why continue the hunt?”

THE SOLUTION

Leaf Design finalizes all projects with BrowserStack Live.

“The BrowserStack interface is extremely easy to use. It’s really simple to fire up a test, choose a combination of OS and browsers, and be running very quickly,” Chapman says.

Because each website build and design is completely custom—and because Chapman and his team know which browsers give their designs and functionalities the most problems—they’re able to use BrowserStack Live to manually identify likely problems before each project goes live, saving them time and potential headaches.

“We now have a tool to support every possible browser and operating system we encounter. The sheer number of permutations available with BrowserStack is incredible. That’s the biggest thing, having the confidence that everything works when we deliver it to our clients.

THE RESULTS

Active testing in all environments leads to more confident delivery and faster troubleshooting.

No longer bogged down by the requirement to configure and manage a physical set of machines, Leaf Design saves tens of thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours in enhanced productivity a year. As a bonus, Chapman’s team is doing more of the client work they love.

“The fact that we don’t have all those iPads, Android devices, and phones around the office, or that we don’t have to deal with OS updates, it’s a big weight off our shoulders,” says Chapman.

Chapman points to BrowserStack’s importance during a recent client site launch where hundreds of staff were invited to view the new site.

Instantly, reports began to indicate the main menu was not functioning correctly.

Puzzled, Chapman inquired with the client and discovered the issue was only occurring on the staff’s mobile devices. Turns out, they were all running an old legacy browser with a market share of only 0.01%. However, within the organization, it was being used by 100% of employees.

Armed with this information, the Leaf Design team fired up BrowserStack and was able to reproduce the rare situation. Using the browser’s developer tools, the team identified the cause of the error, modified the code, and launched a fix within 15 minutes.

“Without BrowserStack, we would have been debugging for hours — if not days — to track down the issue. BrowserStack allowed us to respond immediately and provide a prompt resolution that impressed the client.”