Responsive web design and mobile testing, whether live on the devices available at hand, or via the use of emulators, have definitely become an important part of designers’ lives and workflows.
Testing a newly designed website in real life, i.e. on specific devices is obviously the best way to go. But owning 20 odd devices just for the sake of mobile environment testing can be a costly affair, and unless you’re a mobile guru like Luke Wroblewski (pictured below), you may want to use emulators in order to test your designs on a wide set of devices.
Today, I’d like to introduce you to MITE, an app I’ve had the chance to try lately. MITE is short for Mobile Internet Testing Environment, and has been developed by Keynote Systems. The app is free to download and use, but a paid version will allow you to simultaneously test your design from 7 locations and on 7 devices.
If you can survive the urge to cancel your download of the 700mb install file, which is longer than a week in jail, you will surely appreciate the many features of MITE.
The app allegedly allows you to see your design on more than 2100 mobile devices, but also provides great information of potential issues with your code. The MITE score will give you an idea of how well your site has been designed, and the app will give you direct access to source code, and the chance to automate your testing.
Huge downside: It’s a windows-ONLY app.
More details: http://mite.keynote.com/
My name is Flo Preynat and I am the freelance webdesigner and developer behind shoogle designs. I live in France and specialize in responsive web design. Give me a shoogle or get in touch with me on twitter.
Follow @shoogledesigns
Interested to hear more about your thoughts on MITE. Also looking into SeeTest , BrowserStack as top prospects.
Thx for this Kelly. I haven’t been using much of MITE lately. I didn’t know SeeTest, will be looking into this.