Elsewhen

Challenge

Elsewhen turned to QAwerk to thoroughly test their corporate website as it was being redesigned. They needed our dedicated QA team’s support to launch on time and get reassurance that the website would be polished and provide a satisfactory user experience.

Here’s a brief summary of the testing goals we established:

• Design Consistency: Validate the uniformity of the design across different sections of the site, including top-level and dynamic pages.
• Animations & Transitions: Ensure smooth and expected animations & transitions throughout the site.
• Functional Testing: Test key website features like search, forms, and links to ensure proper functionality.
• Cross-Browser & Device Testing: Confirm compatibility across various browsers and devices for a consistent user experience.
• SEO & Accessibility: Assess and improve the website’s SEO elements and accessibility standards.
• Performance Testing: Ensure the website performs optimally under various load conditions, providing fast load times and smooth navigation.

The primary goal was to ensure that the updated design maintained consistency across both top-level and dynamic pages, while also verifying the functionality, performance, and overall user experience.

Solution

We devise a tailored testing strategy for every single project we contribute to. Let’s take a deeper dive into the work our QA team performed and the impact it made on our client’s revenue and overall brand perception.

Functional Testing

We manually tested all critical areas—homepage, navigation, content display, links, error handling, and interactive elements —paying special attention to highly dynamic and feature-rich areas, such as search filters and contact forms.

Why it matters: Functional testing helps ensure users can complete tasks without errors or blockers. It also helps reduce support inquiries and increase conversion rates by maintaining a frictionless experience.

UI Testing

The Elsewhen team shared their design file with us, and we went through the website, comparing it with the design. We verified the layout, typography, spacing, and color usage across the entire website’s UI. Our QA engineers also checked the motion effects between UI states, including loading, hover states, and modal openings.

Why it matters: UI testing helps improve user trust and brand perception due to a polished, professional look. Design consistency helps reduce cognitive load, assisting users to navigate faster and more confidently. Testing animations and transitions ensured that there were no jarring transitions that could frustrate or confuse users, contributing to a more premium and modern feel.

Accessibility Testing

For accessibility testing, we agreed on an optimal scope of work for the initial check, which comprised:

• Checking if the website provides captions and transcripts for audio and video content
• Ensuring text is readable and has sufficient contrast with the background
• Ensuring all functionality is available via keyboard navigation
• Ensuring the website helps users avoid and correct mistakes, particularly in contact forms
• Verifying screen reader compatibility

Why it matters: Our accessibility testing helped make the website inclusive and compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). We identified contrast issues and documented how they can be fixed and monitored in the future. We also reported HTML errors, which hinder the work of screen readers and prevent potential rendering problems. Our QA engineers found several instances of missing Alt descriptions, which is critical for blind users.

Overall, our testing efforts helped improve the web and mobile experience for users with disabilities, elderly users, and those in low-light environments.

SEO Testing

For the SEO check, we identified the following testing areas:

• Broken links and 404 errors
• XML sitemap and robots.txt file configuration
• Page load speed and mobile-friendliness
• SSL certification and HTTPS status
• Title tags and meta descriptions
• Header tags (H1, H2, etc.) structure
• Image alt texts
• Other meta tags
• Page URL structure
• Favicon

Why it matters: SEO testing helps boost organic visibility, helping more users discover the product through search engines. During the SEO check, three issues were identified: duplication of H1 on some pages, absence of Alt text for a few images, and a poor performance score for mobile devices. Fixing these identified errors results in increased traffic to the site without paid marketing. We ensured pages were indexed correctly and accessible to search bots.

Compatibility Testing

Compatibility testing was essential, as Elsewhen’s designs often had different layouts or design changes per breakpoint and occasionally different functionality to facilitate the UX. Our QA engineers tested the website across desktop (Chrome, Edge, Firefox) and mobile browsers (Chrome for Android, Safari on iOS, Samsung Internet, Opera Mobile).

Why it matters: The compatibility testing we conducted guaranteed a consistent and reliable experience regardless of device or platform. We helped Elsewhen extend their reach to all user segments, avoiding broken experiences on secondary browsers.

Performance Testing

Given that a B2B website is not expected to handle large numbers of concurrent users, we didn’t simulate a high load of 1,000 users or more. Instead, our QA team focused on analyzing loading time, behavior in different network and CPU conditions, render-blocking resources, and a few other factors. The website’s performance was tested on both desktop and mobile using the Chrome browser.

Why it matters: We identified that performance for mobile required significant improvement, with average scores around 50, indicating a significant delay in loading times. On certain pages, the largest content element would take more than 10 seconds to load, which drastically differs from modern user expectation (2-3 seconds max).

Based on the performance evaluation results, QAwerk singled out the following recommendations:

• Reducing the number of HTTP requests
• Minimizing JavaScript execution time
• Ensuring responsive images for mobile devices
• Implementing critical CSS inline to avoid blocking rendering

Thanks to our performance testing efforts, Elsewhen was able to enhance mobile usability and reduce bounce rates, thereby providing a fast and responsive experience.