It is needless to say that the competition in the mobile app market is very high and that only the best of the best apps have a chance of not getting lost in this ocean. An idea or concept alone is never enough to make your app successful as Quality is a pivotal factor that will directly impact your app’s success. As a leading QA company, we have been the backbone of many successful app releases. So in this blog, we will be exploring the top 10 mobile app testing best practices that will make your app stand apart from the crowd. But before that, we have to take a closer look at why we need mobile app testing.
Why do we need mobile app testing?
Nowadays, a majority of people use their mobiles for a wide range of purposes like managing their business, making online payments, social media marketing, and so much more. So it is a simple case of supply and demand here. As our needs are increasing day-by-day, the number of mobile applications being developed also increases. But that is not the only reason, there is also a wide range of people who would use an app to make their business better or for any specific reason, but don’t use it as they feel that the applications fail to procure the worth they want or the application simply fails to serve their purpose.
But nobody sets out to make something that is bad, but how do certain apps never work as planned or even get released? Lack of versatile application testing has a major role to play for such a scenario. So if the user faces any issues in the application then they would either switch over to a similar application instead of wasting their time or stop using apps for that purpose. All these problems can be avoided by using these 10 mobile app testing best practices that will ensure quality.
1. Choose the right device to perform testing:
Before testing any mobile application, choosing the devices wisely will help us cover the maximum number of test cases and make the application a global success. Since we are surrounded by different devices that have different screen sizes, software versions, and so on, selecting the right devices for manual testing will be a pretty risky job. But trying to test the app on all the available devices is an impossible task. So the best idea here is to test the application in the most prominently used mobile devices in the world.
2. Test on real devices:
Testing on real devices will play a major role in ensuring the quality of the mobile application in real-world scenarios to provide the best user experience. Although there are numerous simulators and automated tests available to predict the software and hardware performance, testing on these simulators is not as trustworthy as testing on a physical device. Certain hardware features such as the specific chip settings, processing power, and device memory cannot be accounted for by a simulator. The use of real devices is required for completely testing the mobile app in terms of both hardware and software.
3. Doing early testing:
People’s greatest weakness is their lack of patience. As a result, we do not consider the consequences that will befall us in the future. So most companies develop their applications and release them into the real world without proper testing just to be early to the market. If a user encounters any problems with the application after it has been released, the user may post a negative review in the app store or play store. Or even worse the user might build a negative perception of your app or the company on the whole.
Starting your testing early is one of the best mobile app testing best practices as you can help avoid many more issues down the line. The earlier we start testing, the earlier we find the errors, and the earlier we fix those errors, the higher are the chances of gaining the user’s trust and winning him/her over with our application. Beyond quality, it can even reduce the overall cost of the development process as well.
4. Automate the process of mobile testing:
It’s always a good practice to automate the process of testing as a particular application may have n number of features and connections. The main advantage of doing automation testing is it ensures speed, accuracy, and code reusability, enabling you to quickly test and re-test different conditions. These are the immediate benefits, automation tests will also become cost-efficient in the long run. It is preferable to automate mobile security, performance, and functional testing. As a leading mobile app testing services provider, we have found automation to be a highly effective tool that can make your process extremely efficient.
5. Check App permissions:
We all know that privacy has become a primary concern for many of the users every time they start using a new application as users are very sensitive about the security of their data. Most applications do request data access permissions from their users based on the application context and it is almost unavoidable. But, we must ensure that the application requests only permissions that are required and that it does not request permissions that are not required. This is one of the more recent mobile app testing best practices that has caught on due to the growing awareness around the subject.
6. Test over multiple networks:
Apart from the lockdown situations we saw during this pandemic, users will not be situated in just one fixed place when using your map. In reality, they will constantly be on the move and might not have the same kind of network availability everywhere they go. The user could be solely reliant on mobile data which implies that the user could have any speed ranging from 2G to 5G. If not the user could use Wi-Fi connections at home or their workplace. To avoid any difficulties from the fluctuating network speeds, mobile app testers must confirm that the app works with a variety of network speeds and that it can handle the network changes. So testers must go around testing the app in different network conditions using different network providers.
7. Test the app’s interruption handling capability:
A mobile phone’s primary purpose is to make and receive calls and messages. Apart from that, your app is prone to face such interruptions as loss of network connection, alarms & reminders, other app notifications, and so on. A new unexpected interruption could cause the app to malfunction and create a bad experience for the end-user. There is also the possibility of uninstalling the application as a result of their disappointment. So to avoid all of these interruption concerns, testers must test based on the interruptions a user might encounter and determine whether your product functions properly.
8. Third-party integrations:
In today’s world, most of the applications rely on Third-party integrations to analyze the statistics, crash reports, notification services, and much more. APIs are used to provide these endless services to the target users. So testing third-party APIs or configurations has become a mobile app testing best practice that none can afford to avoid. But it also challenges test teams to switch between different devices during the span of the test scenario. These complex use cases raise the amount of work required to thoroughly evaluate the application, yet can’t be ignored.
9. Test for battery optimization:
Most mobile applications now consume a lot of battery power due to a large number of features in the application or due to its complexity as well. A few examples of such features are audio/video sharing or playback, geo-location tagging, sharing large amounts of data, and so on. Though we have phones that charge so much faster now, users still hate it when it drains as fast as well. If your app is the one that’s consuming a lot of power, then the user will most definitely end up uninstalling your app. To resolve these issues, testers should perform battery tests on all parts of the application and determine which part or feature of the application is consuming a large amount of battery. This will assist business owners in saving money and planning ahead of time to address those issues.
So make sure the user never has to choose between your app or better battery life as that is a contest very hard to win.
10. Test the app for global access:
It will always be a proud moment for any company when their application has been completely developed and released to the world. Yes, having a specific set of people as your target audience is a good option. But your app might find its own niche of users in places you never even imagined. So never miss out on making your app a global product that can be used anywhere. So testers should test different languages, currencies, interfaces, and so on.
Conclusion:
Testing your application is also as important as developing your application. Mobile app testing requires a robust and powerful testing strategy and we hope our list of the top 10 mobile app testing best practices will help you create such strategies. But there is so much more to effective testing than the best practices alone. So make sure to do your own research for the tools to use and so on.
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