With an abundance of mobile apps at the disposal of the people to choose from, customers have high expectations and they look for perfection in every aspect of the app they decide to install and use; whether it is the seamless performance, the features being offered, the aesthetics and feel; essentially the overall experience of using the app makes or breaks the mobile app.
Ever-increasing competition in the market for mobile apps means that organizations need to have a proper strategy in place to be able to deliver apps of superior quality to their intended users. Thus, developing and implementing a mobile testing strategy has become an indispensable part of the QA testing process nowadays.
Any testing strategy involves a number of aspects that need to be accounted for when conducting the tests.
Points to be considered while planning mobile testing strategy
Considering cross-platform possibilities
There are numerous devices available in the market that the app can potentially be downloaded and run on. In other words, there exists considerable device fragmentation. Further, these devices run on several different operating systems, and each operating system, as we know, has several versions and updates, in other words, there is OS fragmentation as well.
It can be mind-boggling to keep track of all possible combinations that the app can run on. An effective mobile testing strategy is one that accounts for the multiple cross-platform possibilities, and under which, testing is planned to cover the maximum number of device-OS combinations, leading to an enhanced coverage of the app’s user base.
Studying the market becomes essential to assess which all OS versions should the app be made functional for. Market share of operating systems and their different versions could be a helpful indication in deciding the target users and conducting tests accordingly. Sometimes an older OS version will be more prevalent since the newer versions would only be available in a newer device, buying which can be expensive for many, so they stick to their older device and hence the older OS versions too.
Once the operating systems to be targeted are chosen, QA teams need to also maximize the number of devices to test the app on. The choice is to test on real devices or on emulators/simulators.
There are several issues that may not pop up in the virtual devices, i.e., simulators and emulators but are definitely a major part of the functionality in real-life scenarios. Some examples include- battery issues, heating of the device, geo-location, etc. There are a lot of background processes that are running on a real device, which could massively impact the functioning of the app. Virtual devices will not be able to account for this aspect. Moreover, virtual devices might show false positives as well. In the initial stages and for singular or a limited set of features, emulators and simulators may be a good option to use.
Even though nothing can compare to testing on real devices, increased coverage under physical testing could mean increased expenditure on building a comprehensive device library.
Creating a device matrix to test different combinations of device-OS versions, to cover major segments of the market could be helpful. This may be based on device specifications and popularity.
In order to offer a mobile app that is functional as well as responsive, over and above the optimal rendering for different devices and operating systems, QA teams need to ensure consistency across screen resolutions, configurations, and other such differentiating factors that may exist among the users.
The ultimate combination between emulators, simulators, and real devices will have to be decided by the QA teams, depending on the needs, priorities, and availability of resources. This step hence becomes a crucial part of the strategy for testing mobile apps.
Utilizing analytics
The wide array of users, based on the device-OS combinations in the market, necessitates testing teams to make some significant decisions about which devices to test on, as we noted in the above point. Insights into users’ behavior and preferences can be obtained by data collection and analysis software. One such powerful tool is Google Analytics which can be utilized to assess the users’ choice when it comes to devices, operating system versions, brand models, browsers, etc. It can give testing teams a peep into the current market trends and can be used to effectively decide on the optimum combinations of devices, browsers, and operating systems to test on.
Accounting for the application type
There are primarily three types of mobile applications in the market that users can choose from:
- Native mobile applications: These are apps that are created in specific programming languages and cater to a particular OS only.
- Web based mobile applications: These are browser based mobile applications.
- Hybrid: As the name suggests, these are apps that are both OS and browser-friendly.
A superior strategy would take into account testing coverage for all three types to ensure consistent performance.
Choosing the type of testing, based on organizations’ pool of resources and knowledge
It is an essential step to assess the tools and knowledge pool of the testers vis-à-vis the mobile testing requirements. There is some open-source free automation software that may be utilized. When it comes to automated testing, there might be some additional technical skills that testers would need in order to correctly handle test scripts, frameworks, etc. For organizations, cloud-based options can provide a great cost-effective alternative to building their own device lab to conduct tests.
Automated testing frameworks these days have the inbuilt facility of cross-platform testing, which is so critical for mobile app testing. On one hand, automation is helpful in running repetitive tests without intervention each time, thus saving time and resources and improving efficiencies. On the other hand, the need for advanced technical skills and investment (in the case of paid software) might be a deterrent at times. Manual testing is inevitable in any kind of software testing, but QA tests cannot solely rely on this mode of testing either.
Hence, coming up with the right balance of manual and automated components as part of the testing strategy becomes important. Further, this decision will also have to be based on the existing tools and knowledge of the testing teams and, the ability to acquire more tools, and technical knowledge, if the need arises.
Planning for effective front and back-end testing
Front-end testing entails testing all details, big and small, that are visible to the end-user of the mobile app and with which the user interacts. Known as GUI (Graphical User interface) it includes things like buttons, forms, drop-lists, etc. that help the client to navigate through the app, also including elements such as page loading speed, etc. The front-end testing needs to be undertaken in order to ensure that the mobile app is well-functioning and bug-free. Integration testing, regression testing, unit testing, etc. form a major part of front-end testing.
No app will survive the intense competition in the market if the front-end testing of the product is not properly planned and executed.
In addition to the way the mobile app renders itself for the customer, the backend functioning of the app is an equally important dimension of the testing strategy. Backend testing ensures that data is being received, stored, and retrieved in an intended manner.
Testing for varied network speeds
Besides the variations in the basic hardware design and operating systems amongst users of the mobile app, there is one more important distinguishers- network speeds. Though there is a growing prevalence of Wi-Fi usage, mobile data is still pretty common. Apps may behave differently with varying internet speeds and network configurations, or when there are sudden drops or changes in the networks and speeds. Thus, network compatibility testing needs to be part of the overall strategy.
Testing for battery usage and storage
End users will immediately uninstall apps that are battery draining or those which unnecessarily take up too much storage space in their phone.
QA teams may have to undertake testing for the above aspects feature-by-feature in order to isolate the elements of the mobile app that are excessively draining the battery of the phone or taking storage up unnecessarily and apply the requisite remedies.
Designing the app rollout strategy
On the face of it, it may not seem like a necessary step as part of testing for mobile apps, but an appropriate rollout strategy is as significant as any other phase of mobile testing.
Beta testing, in which a handful of users are made to use the app and asked to give their feedback, complaints, and suggestions, is valuable as it facilitates organizations to ascertain the users’ take of the app in the real world. This could be in the form of a limited launch, i. e., launching the app in a specific location, etc., or by informing users that they would be downloading a beta version of the app. The right testers, who would be willing to honestly provide their reviews, should be sought out from the building phase of the app itself.
Why this is needed is because, through the feedback from the real-time users, organizations can gather key information about bugs, errors, and glitches in the design and rendering, etc., all things which could go undetected in the internal testing of the app.
As beta versions of the app are rolled out, what needs to also be put in place is an effective monitoring and analysis strategy to check parameters such as frequency of usage, the features being used more prominently, frequency of malfunctioning, etc. These will not be captured through user feedback alone.
The main aim of a progressive rollout strategy is to fix possible errors based on the feedback of select loyal users, rather than having a negative response from the entire set of intended users.
Creating a mobile testing strategy, as noted earlier, is no more an optional step in the development cycle, but an imperative one. The effort for this should start as the app is being built, as there are obvious benefits to early testing. Moreover, increased documentation, though not seen as a core element of testing, can lead to better results, lower costs and judicious use of resources in the future.
QA teams need to have the right mobile testing strategy in place in order to meet the demands and expectations of the end-users along with fulfilling overall business goals. It, hence, becomes important for QA teams to be involved in the process of app development from the very beginning so that the work of all the concerned teams is aligned and a first-rate app is delivered to the customers.