Quality Issue: Testing of wearable tech
2014 can truly be called the year of the wearable tech: hundreds of fitness bands, smart watches and even smart wearable jewelry were announced in 2014. At the same year was announced the most awaited novelty from Apple - Apple Watch.
Some analysts predict a rise in the market of wearable devices in Europe by 42% within 5 years (https://electronicspurchasingstrategies.com/2014/08/08/european-wearable-tech-market-grow-42-five-years/).
Considering such a rapid growth of the wearable devices market, the market of applications, which work with different types of "smart" wearable tech, is rapidly evolving as well.
So what is going on in the market of quality assurance services?
Many companies which provide testing services, have not yet responded to the market growth of wearable devices. Only a few ones offer application testing for wearable devices on the list of provided services.Development companies, who create applications for wearable devices, are compelled to check their product inside the company that does not always give the same result as an independent testing.
What kind of challenges await for teams to test applications for wearable tech?
1. SMALL SCREEN SIZE makes to take another look at UX and UI of applications that run on the screens of smart watches and other devices.
Let us remember the screen of Apple Watch or Samsung Gear? This is 1.3-2 inch display! Whether many is possible to place on such screen? When every pixel is important, it is necessary to think through the interfaces for such devices and in this case old inspection techniques of UX and UI is no longer working. It's time to update interfaces testing methods and its requirements.
2. New features of the wearable devices created a need to develop a new scenarios for FUNCTIONAL TESTING.
Mobile applications testing has made us to revise our testing methods and scenarios that we used before. Is not it? Wearable tech requires the development of new scenarios as well. There are lots of new things that must also be considered in the tests: a variety of sensors, sleep algorithms, interaction with other tech etc.
3. Connectivity with other tech is another challenge that wearable devices puts before testers.
Just think, how many opportunities can be opened through the connectivity between wearable devices and other devices, what a challenge for testing :) Most of devices interact with wearable tech in different ways (via bluetooth, wi-fi, hardware). Just imagine how many different test scenarios of connectivity via wi-fi can be: a weak signal, a sudden disconnection from the network, different equipment.
4. BATTERY LIFE CYCLE is now a critical component of applications testing for wearable devices.
Yep, battery life cycle during the application work was always an important indicator for mobile applications testing, but for the applications that run on wearable tech it is a critical indicator. Indeed, it is a challenge for developers teams of applications for such type of devices, but now there is also a need for testers to reconsider their criteria by which they used to evaluated the applications work.
5. TESTING ON AN ACTUAL DEVICES is no longer just a luxury but a necessity.
Considering the specificity of wearable devices, to replace them with emulators will be very difficult, and to trust the results of testing performed on emulators will be even more difficult. Besides, the emulators of wearable devices can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
Wearable tech is a brand new challenge for testing and our main goal is to break down old paradigms and build new testing guidelines to keep pace with the technology of the future.