Mobiles these days have become mandatory given the capabilities that it has and the virtue of the fact that it diversifies to provide service to the customers in more areas. Since it plays a significant role in human life in the current era, releasing the mobile with high-end features and with no possible bugs or as a minimum number of bugs as possible is essential.
There are plethoras of mobiles and the market has cut-throat competition, so in order to catch the nerve of the target market, we should always ensure that we hit the market at right time also with right and new set of futures. Whilst we focus on delivery, it’s equally important to offer the best qualitative features.
In order to ensure we deliver the feature with lots of quality we need to adopt best testing practices. Below are the certain types of testing techniques that are to be considered for testing to go market with enough confidence.
Before we move on to the actual test techniques we apply, let’s understand the testing objectives when we say mobile testing we need to view this in two angles, let’s see each one of them.
Mobile Device Testing
The main purpose of this test is to ensure the mobile as a device is fully functional in terms of both software and hardware perspective. Also the compatibility of the software with respect to the electronic component system. During this test we will end up finding more bugs related memory leaks, crashes due to hardware and any shutdown issues that will lead to the maintenance or replacements. Any compromise in quality in this area would lead to a great business impact as well as the reputation loss.
The main types of testing conduct here are
System Reliability Test
The purpose of the system to confirm the stability of the mobile device, it varies with load and performance testing by a large far. In this test, we mainly test based on customer usage then track the shutdown rate of the device. This test is being run as long as we reach or come down the agreed % of the problem rate that is defined at the test start. This will give us confidence while launch, also the testing is being done as per customer usage policy there is a high chance for finding bugs.
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Mobile Application Testing
During this test the motivation is in such a way that, the application that is designed and set to be working with mobile platforms must be fully functional also needs to satisfy the end-user needs in all perspectives. Some common things that we look for while testing are
1) How is the application works when it is used in a mobile phone?
2) Can it be installed and uninstalled easily?
3) The response time of the application under desired conditions?
4) The compatibility of the application with various mobile operating systems and hardware?
The mobile applications are further classified into 3 different types
Native Application
Any application that is specific to an operating system is called a native application. These applications will not support other operating systems. Due to this reason, these are comparatively faster than other apps.
Eg: iTunes, specific to IOS and will not work on android platform and vice versa.
Web Application
These applications are generally hosted in web servers and operate on mobile browsers. The application will render the web pages to service the user. Since the applications are hosted on webservers these are comparatively slower than native apps.
Hybrid Application
Hybrid apps are mixed apps, they belong to both the native and web apps that we have discussed to provide the extended support to the user community.
Eg: Twitter, Facebook, yahoo.
Basis the understanding of the above types of applications we should identify the types of testing that are needed.
Usability Testing
The purpose of this test is to evaluate how friendly the application or the device for use, the operation must be very easy so that users at all levels of expertise should be able to use the product without any hassles. Things to be considered in order to gain more customer confidence
Documentation
There should be clear documentation about the operational approach and it should be quite understandable. Self-Explanatory documentation will help customer to sort out any difficulties on them own by going through the guide.
Response time
Customer will never encourage delay, this is one of the key parameter basis in which the usability of the device is rated. Less the response time, more the user convenience
Feedback notifications
A good feedback/ notification system will help deem the product more customer-friendly. Clearer the response message more the
There are certain parameters which will actually decide the usability of a product
User-friendly operation
Response time
Compatibility testing
The main objective of this test to check the application is compatible with various operating systems, browsers and different devices. This being categorized as a non-functional testing technique.
Localization testing
The main purpose of this test is to ensure the application supports quite a few regional languages. This is a key feature as there are consumers from different regions who expects the mobile display fonts and keypad to be in their native language. Since the usage is fair in the society proper testing must be in place to ensure there are no underlying bugs during the language transition. And the process of switching between them should be hassle-free
Load and performance testing
CAs the name indicates, this testing is to subject the application to critical conditions and test how the device or application performance is.
How the device reacts when multiple apps are opened simultaneously
How the battery charge is being consumed by the different applications
How reliable the network performance under various conditions
Security testing
As we learned the importance of privacy from many incidents, it’s very much needed to be compliant with all the security policies to make sure the customer data is treated with utmost care and not used, manipulated and exposed to outer world. Having failed in this means can lead to a great loss of business and trust.
Keep the customer updated on the software maintenance information, using security pins and proper encryption and decryption techniques during data transmission should be adopted.
Installation testing
This test is to verify the scenario of installation and uninstallation. This is also to ensure how user-friendly the process is? Also to ensure the process of installation or upgrade is not crashing the system and user data is not affected.
Functional Testing
In this testing the whole functionality of the device is tested such as the app flow and screen sequence and complete working end to end functionality. Below are a few illustrations of functional testing
Check whether or not the login happens properly
Able to install and un-install the application
Application responds properly, all the buttons are working and response is received.
Automation testing
In this testing the functional validation is done through the script in order to ensure we don’t spend much time in regression execution. We have the best tools and frameworks available to conduct this test.
Tools for mobile automation
1) TestComplete
2) Kobiton
3) Calabash
4) Appium
5) Monkey Talk
6) EarlGrey
7) Testdroid
8) Appium Studio
Conclusion
Mobile application testing with the use of the above techniques is key, given the usage of the mobile apps in this era. Keeping the process and technical facts aside the intention is to deliver an application that is user-friendly and quite responsive. The motivation while testing the application should be set up in a way that the above-mentioned qualities are served to the best. The mobile application is an area for investment where unexpected returns and reputation can be gained. So more we test by getting into the user’s shoe more the benefit that it adds.
Thanks for the read.
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