Mobile Device Testing – A quick guide
The dependency on mobile devices is only going to increase exponentially and hence the need to have them tested is also going to escalate in future. Mobile device testing is a process to test whether the mobile device meets the desired requirements in terms of both hardware and software for which it has been developed.
Why Mobile Device Testing is Important?
The use of mobile devices for performing various tasks has increased by many folds since the last decade. As a result, it is crucial to have perfect devices which can be achieved by doing proper hardware and software testing to minimize the chances of failures. Without proper testing, it would be difficult to implement the features you want in your application which works as per the expectations.
Mobile app testing is all about taking a holistic approach to raise the quality bar of the application. Most of the organizations use both manual and automated testing procedures for mobile device testing. Automating mobile testing helps in increasing the speed, accuracy, and reliability of the testing process.
Mobile Device Testing Strategy
The success of software depends largely on the combined effort of the development and QA testing teams and the strategies they use during the process. It is difficult to test mobile applications without having an effective mobile testing strategy in place. Here are some of the best strategies you can use for testing your website on mobile devices.
Outline Testing Approach
It is important to finalize your testing approach for your mobile testing early depending on your requirements and how much automation you need to incorporate in your testing strategy. Before implementing automation, identify the critical flows of your mobile app and use it as a guideline to determine which features you need to automate, and which are difficult to automate.
UI Testing
UI testing is one of the most crucial cross-functional activities that the UX and QA teams should perform. Organizations must have a clear objective and processes in place to make sure that everything goes in accordance with it. Developers, administrators, QA testers, and stakeholders should come together to make sure that the designs are perfectly aligned with the released code.
Supporting Operating System & Versions
It’s a painful fact that all mobile users are not on the same OS and your application can’t support too many OS versions as it could lead to low returns. Hence, it is crucial to determine the OS and versions the app would support. Also, there are many OS-centric elements that could possibly go wrong. It is wise to leave some users instead of supporting all the OS versions and having these issues leading to negative reviews and feedback.
Or better yet, instead of testing the application manually, automate your test cases which can then be executed on different devices automatically. But for this you should invest in a test automation tool that also makes returns on your investments and does not take up too much of your resources for setup, execution or maintenance.
- User Acceptance Testing Strategy
User Acceptance Testing or also known as beta testing is important to test a product before going live using internal resources. Once the features and functionalities have been evaluated by the developers and QA managers, the product team can set up a meeting with the internal users to test the app for at least 1-2 hours.
- Test Case Reviews by QA Specialists
Some organizations do not involve QA specialists in reviewing the test cases or in strategizing product development. It is wise to involve QA specialists in making the strategy and product building process. Also, they should review the test cases involved in developing each feature. Involving business owners and QA team in the code review process can reduce the risk of failure significantly and ensure that each vital flow is understood before the product goes live.
As the amount of effort and investment involved in building a perfect mobile application is high, it is crucial to ensure that an application works exactly as expected. These strategies would lay a foundation to bring such an application in the market that would make a difference in the life of consumers.
How to Choose an Automated Mobile Testing Tool?
Scriptless Test Creation: Codeless test creation is the need of the hour as it also lets non-coders create tests in simple English language and speed up the entire testing process But for some cases such as to perform unit testing for a particular function or a class, you would need to create test programs to test your function or class. So, you can look for a tool that is scriptless as well as provides support for multiple programming languages.
Create Tests for Different Operating Systems:
There are two types of majorly used mobile operating systems in the market, Android and iOS. These operating systems update periodically. So choosing the right mobile automation testing tool requires support for a multi-operating system test feature. Advantage of using this feature is that by using the same code you can run it on multiple platforms by just changing the Operating system configuration.
Access to Real Mobile Android and iOS Mobile Devices: Choose a tool that gives an instant and complete access to 2000+ Android and iOS mobile devices and tablets. This feature will increase your device coverage and guarantee an in-depth analysis of various functionalities
Seamless Integration with CI/CD tools: If you are using DevOps and CI/CD in your project management, make sure that the tool seamlessly integrates with the tools used for CI/CD processes. It facilitates collaboration between the developers, help share results quickly, and also help you find and fix high priority errors upfront.
Real-Time Notifications for Effective Communication: Communicating The test results with the team members paves way for quick feedback and fast issue resolution. So, make sure that the tool can easily send test summary reports via Email, Slack, and chat options
In addition to the above points, you should consider the tool’s compatibility across platforms, scalability, reporting features, ease in test creation and maintenance, and price before finalizing an automated mobile device testing tool. Having a right testing strategy coupled with the right automation tool can make all the difference in developing a successful mobile application.
You might need technical assistance while handling critical problems of a project, so make sure the tool gets you covered.
Testsigma as a tool for mobile device testing
Testsigma offers a unified test automation ecosystem for web apps, mobile apps, and APIs that can help you deliver the best quality mobile apps. It lets you easily write complex automated tests for app testing in simple English and saves time spent on maintaining flaky tests. Testsigma’s AI-powered engine keeps all your mobile app tests up and running without any effect due to app changes.
It provides access to more than 2000 real Android and iOS mobile devices and tablets. Also, its support for shift-left approach allows you to perform continuous testing right from the design phase and seamless integrations with Bamboo, Jenkins, and CircleCI helps you keep on track with the DevOps and CI/CD workflows. Use Testsigma and see the ROI of your mobile app testing efforts in no time.
