The foundation of the modern digital world is mobile applications. The demand for mobile apps has increased in recent years due to the exponential development of Smartphone users and the latest devices themselves. According to reports, currently, there are more than 6 billion smartphone subscriptions, and by 2027, that figure is expected to rise to a record high of over 7.6 billion.
With this number on the rise, there is no denying that the mobile application market is currently booming at record speeds to provide amazing user experiences and satisfy customers needs. Reviewing mobile applications to ensure that they adhere to all requirements and eliminate any major problems that frustrate customers is essential in achieving a successful mobile app journey. Effective mobile app testing using appropriate mobile app testing tools and clearly defined testing techniques can unlock the solution to this problem of app failures.
What is mobile application testing?
Testing a mobile app for usability, functionality, and consistency before release is known as mobile application testing. Effective mobile app testing assures and confirms the app’s capability to satisfy the anticipated business requirements and provide the intended user experience.
What and why do we need a mobile app testing strategy?
To accomplish a goal of producing quality apps, a plan is crucial. It outlines the steps that must be taken as part of testing to meet the quality target with the greatest possible coverage in the allotted period. The time to market for mobile applications is getting shorter every day.
Launching your mobile app as soon as possible, or at least before your competitors, is an essential strategy to outperform or gain an advantage over our competitors. Herein lies the significance of a testing plan. In the race against time, there is a much needed urge for a testing strategy that seeks to guarantee high performance, high quality, and complete test coverage.
1. Understand Mobile Testing Challenges
Testing for mobile apps is more difficult than testing for desktop and online applications. Developing a testing plan is necessary to know the potential obstacles or roadblocks that might come up along the way. Device fragmentation, OEM fragmentation, screen size and OS fragmentation, mobile network operators and users’ mobility, localization, and various mobile apps and testing tools, are common issues for mobile testing.
2. Involvement of QA
The effectiveness of the application development process is frequently compromised when quality assurance (QA) is included in much later phases of the development lifecycle. Instead, QA and testing must be included early during the design phase of the app development lifecycle, before the creation of the final design and the readiness of the app. One must consider several test cases that will be used to test the app before its release. This process might make it easier to see any problems while the app is still being developed and eliminate bugs or snags to provide consumers with a smooth app experience.
3. UI and UX Optimization
Having a solid design strategy is essential because it has a direct effect on the look and feel of the app. This is crucial to any mobile testing plan since various design elements must be scaled down to fit the device’s needs. Each element must be useful and use less bandwidth to load pages faster. The elements must also be compatible with the device’s most recent software upgrade to enjoy a smooth and seamless experience.
Thanks to an intuitive user interface, all users should be able to use the app easily. Clean, only loadable elements should be used in the design. Users may now explore and navigate fast as a result.
4. Cross-Platform Testing
There are different types of Mobile operating systems that an app needs to be tested on. Android and iOS are two major primary OS platforms that are used by a majority of smartphone users. To make sure the mobile application functions as intended across all platforms, it is crucial to plan to test it on each platform. It is vital that we test the application across platforms to identify any bugs that may come up because of compatibility with Android and iOS.
5. OS testing and support
Although iOS and Android are the operating systems used by a majority of mobile devices, it’s still necessary to prepare ahead for which OS and, more crucially, which versions your app will support. Testing an app on a single OS is simple, but testing gets more challenging when you encounter different versions with the OS platform. The app support you provide across different OS versions should be tested carefully with proper planning after thorough market research.
6. Device testing
Ensuring that an app runs smoothly across all devices is one of the most difficult jobs QA teams must handle. It’s crucial to consider which devices require testing after learning which OS versions will be supported. The testing procedure might take longer for more devices to be evaluated. However, to test real devices it might turn out to be a costly affair if you plan to set up your own infrastructure by acquiring the required devices individually. A more cost-effective solution is to leverage the power of testing the physical devices remotely through platforms such as pCloudy.
7. Know the Types of Mobile Application Testing
Mobile app testing has three main focuses, each complementing the other. Each form of testing should be planned to be included in your mobile testing strategy:
- Functional testing: Various testing methods are used in functional testing, where explicitly stated criteria are employed to confirm the application is operating as intended. Functional testing occurs at the unit test level and throughout the development lifecycle.
- Hardware device testing: Hardware device testing is particular to the device in question and typically calls for the actual hardware, not emulators or simulations.
- Attribute testing (or non-functional testing): Attribute testing, sometimes known as “non-functional testing,” looks at product characteristics beyond its basic functioning. Non-functional testing can take many forms: user experience (UX), performance, localization, scalability, security, and compatibility.
Conclusion
Finally, each outstanding app is supported by efficient mobile app testing that fits with a clear plan. Successful solutions may assist in addressing a sizable number of the early-cycle difficulties that an app may present, which helps to shorten the go-to-market time and ensures the best possible functioning and quality of the app.
