End-to-end testing for progressively enhanced sites

Progressively enhanced sites are awesome, but testing all their permutations across browsers is not. Using Nightwatch.js, Brian Belhumeur demonstrates some techniques you can use to write end-to-end tests that will adapt to the capabilities of the targeted browser so you can spend less time maintaining your test matrix and more time making it more adaptable and future-proof.

Progressively enhancing your website is a best practice that provides the most advanced experience possible to users across the board. Every combination of browser and platform presents a different set of features and capabilities, especially since users can also toggle features like JavaScript, cookies, geolocation, and local storage on and off in their browsers. While this expansive customizability is great for users, how can you realistically test the correct set of features across a wide range of browsers? Testing can be a bear and usually ends up being an afterthought. Reducing the friction of writing and maintaining tests is always a good thing. So much emphasis is put on innovating our products; it’s time we put some innovation into our testing as well. Using Nightwatch.js, Brian Belhumeur demonstrates techniques and strategies for progressively enhancing your tests so they dynamically adapt to the site you’re testing. These methods work well for isomorphic apps, responsive sites, and sites that work with or without JavaScript. At the end of the day, you need to know that with any given browser’s capabilities, your site works as intended. Progressively enhanced tests are an excellent way to meet this challenge.