Importance of Mobile App Testing

“All code is guilty until proven innocent.” – Anonymous

It doesn’t matter how good you are in writing code; your code must pass through a well-defined set of tests.

Nowadays mobile applications are not mere mobile applications! They are in the golden era of embracing more progressive & hybrid applications. In such a technological enabled atmosphere, mobile app testing has become a critical affair. We have identified some hot points of mobile app testing and they are: 

• Native Apps: The native applications are built for mobile & tablets.
• Mobile Web Apps: Mobile web apps use different browsers to access websites on mobiles via wireless networks.
• Hybrid Apps: The hybrid apps are the combo of native & web apps.

Challenges in Mobile App Testing

The mobile apps are harder to test than desktop applications. Some of the main reasons are:

• The array of smartphones & tablets features a wide variety of screen sizes and resolutions along with diverse hardware configurations.
• The mobile OS like Android,and iOS, have a large number of versions such as Android 4.2,4.4, 5.0, 6.0, 7.0, 7.1 or iOS 9.3.5, iOS 10.0, iOS 10.3.1, etc.

Why Mobile App Testing?

Mobile app testing is successfully growing day by day in the digital world. The most common issues found in the mobile native and hybrid applications are loading problems or a deficient or lacking in performance, unresponsive elements, respond to resolutions, etc. These issues could be fixed with mobile application testing before launching into production.

In the modern technology-driven world, the mobile phone has become an important part of everyone’s life. Everybody using a mobile app or a mobile-friendly website for any business. Besides, many new businesses are popping up every day in the e-commerce world with a myriad of applications covering their internet spaces.

Some of the most popular native applications are calling and messaging apps like Snap chat, WhatsApp, Ola, Uber, Quick Ride, and many others.

When running any business, one of your main goals should always be to provide the best experience possible for every customer. Testing mobile applications is an imperial phase in the mobile app development process. All the major issues that an application faces can be resolved through a successful mobile app testing. Besides, a perfect mobile app testing ensures easy app launching on the production server without any flaws.

The main categories of mobile app testing are: 

• Functional Testing: Make sure that the application is functioning as per requirements and specifications.
• Performance Testing: Examine the behavior of the applications in light of some conditions.
• Interrupt Testing: Checks the interruption during the application’s performance. They are:
  • Incoming/Outgoing SMS/MMS or calls
  • Incoming notifications from other apps
  • Battery Removal
  • Cable Insertion/Removal
  • Network switching
  • Media Player on/off
• Usability testing: Examines the platform guidelines along with the convenience of the app.
• Installation testing: Being a major part of the testing, installation testing allows examining the installation compatibility of the application across various stores. It also checks the parameters of app updates & removal.

Mobile App Testing Checklist

The mobile app testing checklist allows you reduce failure in the mobile testing approach. Below we are mentioning the checklist you should take care while testing a mobile app: 

Image courtesy: medium.com

Key Factors influencing Mobile App Testing

Some key factors play great roles in mobile app testing:

• Mobile Devices: Mobile app testing is a device testing approach. It is important to test the application in different resolutions and operating systems.

• Mobile Simulators: Mobile simulators play a prominent role in testing mobile applications. A mobile simulator is a software application that is built to function just like the actual device. These simulators are easy to implement and a cost-effective option for testing purposes. Besides, the testing is never interrupted in such a simulator with slow network issues, and the process just becomes faster and better. The testers can get full access and enable them to understand the behavior of an application in the local storage environment. It also gives the ease of installation and boosts faster time-to-market.

• Cloud Testing Tools: Testing a mobile app is a challenging task as it involves testing on various devices, operating systems, and several versions available in the market. We have to test each of the functionality so that the app runs flawlessly on the platforms like Android & iOS. Configuring different testing lab is expensive. Here cloud-based mobile app testing tools like Browserstack, Pcloudy, Perfecto, and the AWS Device Farm are the perfect solutions. These are designed to test and interact with your Android, iOS, and web apps at the same time addressing errors including reproducing issues on a device in real-time.

• Network Conditions: It is essential to test mobile applications under different network conditions to ensure the application’s behavior. It should be consistent with challenging network scenarios.

• App Performance: You can check the application’s performance via automated testing to verify its behavior by applying load/stress/volume.

• Manual & Automated Test Cycle: It’s important to test native and hybrid applications via both manual and automated ways. We can quickly validate failure/issues/bugs through an automated regression test suite.

Below are the prominent automation tools available in the market:

We are rapidly embracing the era of automation in every step of our life. Manual testing is essential. However, automation testing ease many things we encounter while verifying a piece of code or an application as a whole. You can write test scripts in an automation tool to release a flawless application on the production server. Some of the widely used and prominent automation tools are mentioned below:  

• Selenium
• TestingWhiz
• HPE Unified Functional Testing (HP – UFT formerly QTP)
• TestComplete
• Ranorex
• Sahi
• Watir
• Tosca Testsuite
• Telerik TestStudio
• Katalon Studio

Mobile APP Security Testing

Your data is the most important thing in your business. By analyzing the data, you can make game-changing business decisions.

So, you never think of losing important data. This is where security testing plays a significant role in mobile app testing. The primary aim of mobile app security testing is:

• Prevent fraud
• Prevent virus or malware's infection
• Prevent hacking

The whole package of mobile app security testing includes data security, authentication, authorizations, hacking vulnerability, etc.    

Below are the top mobile app security testing tools:

• CodifiedSecurity
• Drozer
• WhiteHat Security
• Synopsys
• Veracode
• Mobile Security Framework (MobSF)
• ImmuniWeb® MobileSuite
• Zed Attack Proxy
• Kiuwan
• QARK
• Micro Focus
• Android Debug Bridge

Conclusion

To conclude, we can say that mobile app testing is as essential as safeguarding your bank credentials. Any data breach is uncompromisable.

A professional mobile app development company should focus on the guarantee of functionality and quality of the product and always look forward to improving the quality of the app by providing new quality enhancements.

This blog is co-authored by Riddhi Naik, Priyanka Kakade, Punit Gawande, Bhavana Bhavar, Sachin Jadhav, Ramesh Kumbha, and Ranjeeta Borah.