How to test Responsive Images

Visual testing is a critical stage in the lifecycle of an application that can uncover bugs and problems within user interfaces (UI) as early and quickly as possible. The usability testing phase assesses the structural and visual aspects of the application when it has not yet been launched.

Visual testing examines static screens and live apps to detect common issues such as layout errors, performance bottlenecks, usability flaws, and inconsistent branding. Hence testing the responsiveness of images and UI is an integral part of Visual Testing. In this article, we will learn about what a responsive image is and how we can test it.

What is Responsive Image?

Let’s first define a responsive image before moving on to our main query which is how to test responsive images in a browser. 

In order to load the appropriate picture dependent on the device’s resolution, orientation, screen size, network connection, and page layout, a set of techniques known as responsive images is used. The image shouldn’t be stretched by the browser to fit the page layout, and loading it shouldn’t consume too much time or bandwidth. The user experience is enhanced since graphics load quickly and appear clear to the eye.

Quite simply, a responsive image responds and adjusts to different screen sizes. In real-world usage, that means that the image should have the following attributes:

• The image should be able to render crisply at different device pixel ratios. That means high-resolution screens display high-resolution images, but low-res screens should not have to deal with the extra pixels.
• In the case of a responsive layout, images need to stretch or squeeze to align with its changes.
• For both the above cases, images will have to be made responsible in multiple resolutions so that they can scale accordingly.

Example of Responsive Image

A brief example is the best method to demonstrate responsive images. We will load a 2200px wide image onto various devices to keep things simple. The viewport size is the only change from what is otherwise constant.

Because the width of the viewport and the picture match for desktop, the image is ideal. However, as we can see, the viewport for mobile devices is just 375 CSS pixels wide, while the viewport for the tablet is only 1024 CSS pixels wide. Thus the same applies. This is a shortened example of how ideal screen size for responsive design functions.

How are Responsive Images made?

Connecting the image’s width to the container DOM element’s width may make images “fluid.” This ensures that the image can adjust to the container element’s width, which can vary depending on the viewport.

The image will be appropriately resized once you have inserted an img tag inside a container tag.

Why do we need Responsive Images?

One size does not fit all, as seen in the illustration above. To provide a better user experience, a responsive design should adjust depending on the user’s screen size, pixel density, and device orientation.

Here are the top three justifications for using responsive images:

• Across platforms, a consistent user experience (UX) and presentation (mobile, desktop, tablet, etc.).
• Loading the proper picture
• Simple product maintenance — write once, deploy anywhere principle.
• Pages load more quickly.

Testing Responsive Images

Responsive testing will determine whether each image on your page is the proper size for the user’s viewport. Your page shouldn’t supply images bigger than the ones the user’s screen can display. Serving a picture larger than the user’s viewport causes the image to be scaled down, unnecessary bandwidth to be used, and a longer time for the page to load.

A positive user experience and higher quality should be guaranteed by responsive image testing.

Responsive Images Testing in Browser

Let’s talk about a useful and efficient technique for testing and debugging your responsive designs. It uses Google Chrome, a tool you most likely already own. Device mode, a feature of Google Chrome’s DevTools, is stocked with valuable tools for testing and debugging responsive images.

This device mode is unique. Compared to most other responsive design testing tools, device mode simulates the functionality of a mobile device, particularly touchscreen interactions like tapping and swiping, right within your web browser.

Steps to perform Responsive Test in Browser

Step 1: Open your website on Google Chrome to begin using Device Mode. Then select More tools > Developer Tools from the Chrome menu by clicking on the Menu button. Developer Tools can be launched using the keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+Shift+I (Windows) or Option+Command+I. (Mac).

Step 2: Toggle device mode on and off by clicking the device mode icon (it’s a little button that resembles smartphones).

Step 3:  This will enable you to test your design’s visual appeal and touch-like interactions on the aforementioned mobile device.

Responsive Image Testing on BrowserStack

Additionally, we can swiftly test your responsive websites (hosted locally or publically) on real mobile devices using the BrowserStack Responsive Tool. In essence, this tool aids in the user’s testing of responsive web design and every website should ideally be tested using a responsive tester tool.

• It checks whether a website is being shown correctly across a variety of platforms, including desktop and mobile.
• To guarantee that a website offers the best user experience across the widest range of devices, responsive checker tools are crucial.
• This means considering a wide range of screen sizes, device setups, and other elements that have grown to be quite important due to device fragmentation.

Steps to perform Responsive Test using Browserstack

Step 1: The first step is to launch the BrowserStack Responsive Checker Tool and type the URL of the website under test.

Step 2: To check responsiveness, click Check.

Step 3: The user can check how the site appears on a certain device after choosing it.

Conclusion

The scope of software testing strategies is increasing from just Functional testing to other forms of testing techniques. Visual testing is one of them and has a high impact on the users in the form of UI experience. In this article, we have completed testing of responsive images.

Using Browserstack Responsive testing, we can incorporate our visual testing of Responsiveness on real browsers and devices. Manual testing might not be sufficient for a large number of responsive pages, though; we should use Browser Automation with BrowserStack Automate to automate responsive testing across real browsers and devices to detect inconsistencies that manual testers may overlook.

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