The mobile industry is commonly acknowledged to be undergoing swift expansion, and to expedite the delivery of applications, businesses are placing significant reliance on automation testing. As per a recent survey, among the available free or open-source test automation tools, Appium is the preferred choice for 35% of organizations operating in the mobile domain.
In almost every business, time is equivalent to money, and this holds particularly true for software and mobile app development. Products are being launched at ever-shortening intervals, necessitating the optimization of the software development lifecycle for Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery. As every release cycle is critically dependent on continuous testing, it is highly recommended to have a robust testing strategy in place.
Having an effective mobile application testing strategy is crucial for various reasons. It can:
- Boost revenue generation.
- Enhance user experience
- Minimize risks
- Establish a distinctive brand identity.
- Ensure customer satisfaction.
As the demand for flawless websites that operate seamlessly grows, it becomes imperative to test them for responsive web design and maintain their quality assurance. However, since mobile testing for websites is still in its early stages, it is crucial to keep in mind certain essential factors that are at the core of it. Several Android App Testing Companies focus their testing efforts on achieving specific results.
What to Consider in Mobile App Testing
Testing Apps on Diverse Configurations
While testing mobile apps, it’s crucial to conduct user acceptance tests on diverse configurations that surpass the iOS and Android operating systems of Apple and Google, respectively. The application’s performance and overall user experience are linked to its ability to function correctly across multiple configurations, acting as layers that the app must traverse before reaching the end user.
The operating system, its specific version, smartphone model hardware, and screen dimensions are the most important layers or configurations to consider while testing a mobile app. Each layer encountered by the app can influence its performance and user experience.
As the smartphone market is diverse in terms of models, operating systems, and other aspects, operating across multiple configurations is critical for apps. Therefore, application testing must encompass executing test cases across various smartphone configurations to detect bugs that are unique to or particular to specific configurations.
The provided graphic illustrates the fragmentation of the Android market in 2015, where each tile represents the market share of a particular model and its corresponding operating system.
Testing Apps Across Diverse Networks
When it comes to application testing, the speed of data networks is a crucial aspect to consider. The proliferation of cellular networks and WiFi hotspots has made it possible to use mobile apps nearly everywhere. Hence, it is essential to test apps across WiFi and cellular networks of varying speeds. The discrepancies in network speed and data capabilities can impact page load times and specific features such as augmented reality, which necessitate a faster network.
This type of test can expose any issues that the app may have in specific markets that have slower data speeds. Emerging markets have seen some brands opt to create Progressive Web Apps because they offer similar advantages and features as mobile apps but perform better in areas with slower network connectivity.
The provided image displays the differences in time spent on wifi across different countries, while the discrepancies in data network speed across various countries are also significant factors to consider during testing.
Testing Apps Across Varying Screen Dimensions and Specifications
Screen size is a crucial factor to consider when testing applications, as it can reveal bugs that adversely affect the app’s layout. When an app fails to adapt correctly across particular dimensions, essential functions and products can be left off the screen, leading to a decline in the digital experience and the brand’s image.
Moreover, apps can lose a significant portion of their utility when vital elements are partially or entirely out of the field of view.
Testing functional and user experience (UX) test cases
When it comes to mobile app testing, one important consideration is whether to test on real devices or emulators. While functional tests can be executed using emulators, which are more cost-effective than building a library of real testing devices, emulators have their limitations. Real devices, on the other hand, offer a wider range of testing capabilities, including geolocation features, camera functional tests, biometric scanners, and other functions that have emerged in recent years.
Furthermore, testing on real devices provides a more accurate assessment of the app’s usability and overall user experience since the end-users will be using the app on their own smartphones or tablets, not on emulators. Therefore, it is recommended to use a combination of both real devices and emulators in order to execute a comprehensive mobile app test.
Types of Mobile Testing
Functional testing is conducted to ensure that all the features and functionalities of a mobile app perform accurately as intended. The objective of this type of testing is to validate the user flows and test every individual feature that constitutes these flows. As users expect mobile apps to operate flawlessly, encountering glitches or defects can lead to the uninstallation of the application.
Thus, it is crucial to conduct tests for various usage scenarios, including app installation and launch, user sign-up and login, proper functioning of text boxes, buttons, menus, and icons, accurate rendering of push notifications at appropriate intervals, and seamless transactions and purchases.
To execute comprehensive and real-time software testing, a cloud-based digital experience testing platform like LambdaTest that provides access to a real device cloud, consisting of hundreds of real devices. For mobile app testing, users can utilize thousands of mobile devices available for iOS, and Android.
Interrupt testing involves verifying how an application responds when it is unexpectedly interrupted. The application should either pause and return to its original state or respond in a specific way depending on the type of interruption. The type of interruption will vary based on the application being tested, but some common ones that need to be considered during testing include:
- Incoming phone calls while the application is running
- Receiving messages or SMS while the application is running
- Low battery alert while the application is running
- Plugging or unplugging the device from charging while the application is running
- Device shutdown while the application is running
- Operating system upgrade during application use
- Network loss and restoration while the application is running.
The purpose of interruption testing is to ensure that an application can handle interruptions without any failures or abnormalities. When used by actual users, every application must function along with other device functions. Therefore, every app needs to be optimized to handle these device functions while running.
Speed testing is a critical aspect of website testing, particularly for mobile devices, which generated 59.16% of global website traffic in Q4 of 2022, excluding tablets. Ensuring a website loads quickly on mobile devices is crucial since 53% of mobile site visitors abandon a page if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. Therefore, it is essential to check the loading time of a website on mobile devices, particularly the most commonly used ones. However, testing website speed on every mobile device individually would be inefficient in terms of time and effort.
Memory leak testing is the process of checking whether an application releases the memory it has acquired for temporary use after performing its function. If the application fails to release memory, it can cause the available memory to drain, making it difficult for the app to function properly. Even a small memory leak can cause the app to terminate if it is frequently used or opened. Since memory leaks result from programming bugs, it is essential to test every application for this issue.
To perform memory leak testing, the application is executed on multiple devices with varying memory capabilities. This allows testers to evaluate the app’s performance on different configurations and optimize it to function effectively on each device.
Usability testing, also known as user experience testing, is a process that evaluates the user-friendliness of an application. It aims to ensure a seamless user experience, free of bugs and anomalies, by assessing ease of use and intuitiveness. Since an app’s success depends on its end-to-end user experience, it is best to conduct usability tests with real customers on actual devices. This is the most effective way to understand the preferences of the target audience. Alternatively, skilled testers can run user scenarios that mirror the behavior of actual end-users.
- Testing an application’s performance under different conditions is crucial to ensuring optimal functionality. Performance testing subjects the device to various types of pressure to assess its ability to perform correctly in non-optimal conditions. The following are some of the areas that performance testing should cover:
- Device performance: This includes installation time, login time, battery consumption, memory consumption, and more.
- Network performance refers to the ability of a network to provide digital information and enable network-driven functionalities without delays, errors, or interruptions.
- API/Server performance: This evaluates the speed and efficiency of data transfer from the back-end to the front-end.
- Recovery capabilities: This refers to built-in backup and recovery functions that can save or recover user data in case of data loss.
Security Testing: As data security becomes a growing concern for app users, it is crucial to conduct security testing to ensure the confidentiality of their personal information. A significant number of people (70%) worry about the unauthorized sharing of their data, and as many as 81% have reported that they would uninstall an app and switch vendors due to security concerns.
Security testing is essential for any app to be successful, and it is essential for apps that require users to provide personal information, such as banking apps. Quality assurance testers must perform thorough tests to fortify the application and ensure that it can protect users’ data from potential leaks or hacks.
Conclusion
Testing a website for mobile devices can be a challenging task due to the complexities of the application and the various aspects it caters to. However, the aforementioned five points can aid in devising an effective mobile testing strategy and provide testers with key considerations to bear in mind when beginning cloud testing for mobile applications.
If you’re seeking to test your business application with the guidance of a leading mobile app testing company, look no further! Come and discuss with our certified app testers. Our quality mobile testing solutions include an optimal mobile app testing strategy that eliminates unnecessary errors from your application and enhances its performance. So, don’t hesitate to hire our QA software testers to ensure your application’s reliability.