9 KEY points of mobile application testing

Nowadays most of the software world on the WEB is turning into APPLICATIONS on the mobile devices and tablets. Industries are moving from manual systems to automated systems with the help of mobile applications across different Operating Systems and Platforms.

Mobile user’s rate is increasing drastically day by day so it is very critical and important to test mobile applications perfectly and accurately.

We already know lots of challenges faced while testing of mobile application such as wide device and version range, different types of applications (Hybrid/Native), lack of time and cost etc.

I want to share some key points in this article which will help to overcome above challenges and results into successful mobile application with high user experience.

1. Knowing your users & location/environment - End user is the most important factor to consider while rating success of an application so try to know your users very well. Try to simulate environment and location where they are going to use the application.
   This will help to increase usage of the application and avoid most important features being ignored by a user.
2. Domain Understanding  – Acquire as much domain knowledge as possible to understand user’s perspective for the application.This will help in dealing with different types of applications and service areas.
   Vertical Analysis has to be done as per DOMAIN area of an application. For example if we are testing media & entertainment application then we need to pay attention towards both tablets and mobile devices. On the other hand while testing Communication application the emphasis has to be on the mobile devices and not on the Tablets.
3. Market research of devices – We need to analyze the market before actually starting the testing phase. By doing this, we will have a list of all targeted devices ready to test. We have to keep an eye on quarterly mobile test coverage index.
   Which devices are planning to be launched within next 6 months ? So while testing try to include those alpha devices also.

   Combined market analysis + Web traffic analysis.

4. Choose right tools - There are different mobile testing tools available in the market like Appium, Calabash, Frank, Monkey Talk, iOS UI Automation, Robotium, iOS-driver, UI Automator, KeepItFunctional, Selendroid etc. so we need to choose tools which are suitable to our context.
   It should be platform independent allowing you to create true end-to-end testing methodology.
5. Generic test cases repository - Keep generic test cases ready for different OS and also of different types. Draft all generic cases like network, recovery and compatibility. This will work as an asset for testing team.
6. Testing checklist - Have a checklist prepared with you before the start of actual testing phase. Keep updating the checklist regularly. This will prevent 11th hour mistakes and results into quality output.
7. Test metrics – Use test metrics to analyze and measure test results. These results would provide us with areas that need improvements.
8. Usability Testing – Usability really matters a lot. We need to perform usability tests to achieve high user acceptance to an application.
9. Backward compatibility testing on new O.S. / Versions – Though this is very important one it is very rarely used.

We need to test our existing apps on new and upcoming OS / Versions. If anything needs to be modified/fixed then we should upgrade the same. Hence users will always be happy with our applications.

At Omni-Bridge we follow end to end QA testing process in which all the key points mentioned above are considered. We also create a Benchmarking document to measure quality of the application which is going out.

Feel free to contact us at [email protected]