6 Testing Tips to Help Woo Mobile Users and Improve ROI

As of February 2016, the number of apps available in the Google Play Store stood at a staggering 2 million apps (per statista.com), while the number of global mobile devices and connections in 2015 grew to 7.9 billion, up from 7.3 billion in 2014 (per Cisco Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update, 2015–2020 White Paper).

What this means is simple – to woo a mobile user to use the device that you are making, and to use an app that you created, you need to wear a different kind of hat compared to others. If your mobile or app is the same as a lot of others, or have any defect per se, you can be sure that the sale will not happen.

To meet these high expectations and incessant demands of your consumers, the foremost thing to do is to understand the actual need (or problem). Once you have, create something that meets – and if possible, exceeds – their needs. To do so, you must be able to adopt and adapt to the latest technological breakthroughs so as to be able to provide the ultimate experience to the users. Additionally, without fail, you also need to implement and practice end-to-end and thorough functional and performance testing strategies. These business-critical strategies will make your apps and mobile devices more robust, reliable, easy to use, and thereby more lucrative for the buyers.

6 Quick Tips

Following are a few tips for implementing the best possible performance and functional testing environment of mobile devices and apps:

1. Collect and keep an eye on the app usage patterns: Most of the apps today allow collecting statistics related to usage patterns. This data, when properly collated and analysed, can prove to be the key to finding solutions to the needs of the app users. Some examples of critical data that can be collected are:

• Which is the most visited/used screen?
• How long does it take to load data into the app?
• Using which section/option usually crashes the app?
• How does your website appear and function on different devices?
• Do backend scripts and functions cause the app to perform slowly?

2. Test functionality for multiple scenarios: As obvious, there are way too many mobile devices that work on different platforms based on different technologies providing services across multiple network vendors and service providers. To test the functionality of your apps across the maximum number of permutations and combinations possible, it is advised to use the expertise of independent mobile testing vendors who are equipped with cloud-based mobile testing labs.
3. Monitor Performance of Systems via Performance testing: When performance scripts are run continuously, the load testing tool generates a treasure of data related to business intelligence that can help you answer the all-important questions of what, when, and why. This knowledge can then be analysed further to take the corrective actions as required for increasing your ROI, and retaining your user base.
4. Tread the DevOps Path: DevOps is helping organizations evolve at a very fast rate using the Shift-Left practice. Involve your Development and Operation teams in the testing of the application performance. This helps an app being viewed from different angles and thus helps remove any defects before being launched.
5. Practice Continuous Testing and Continuous Integration of the apps: The more you test an app for functionality and performance, the more you integrate it, the better will be the performance, scalability, and robustness of the app in question. CT and CI will help in scenarios where mobile users switch quickly between multiple apps on their mobile devices.
6. Perform Crowd Testing: The more you get your app and device tested, the better will be the quality. It is thus advisable to use the experience of well-established and trusted independent software testing service providers whose only focus is on performing testing of all types. These service providers not only provide the experience required for performing end-to-end testing of your apps, but usually also have the infrastructure that tests your app for multiple devices, platforms, geographies, configurations and more. They can perform full-fledged virtual load tests, simulating the experience of hundreds of real users.

Unless you provide apps (either web or mobile) that meet the quality expectations of the users, you will not be able to improve the ROI of your business.

Cigniti provides a world class Mobile Testing Lab. Reach out to one of our consultants at contact@cigniti.com to discuss your needs and how we can help you achieve your goal of robust and thorough testing for your mobile applications and suggest a model that is tailored for your needs.

For more value added services of Cigniti, visit www.cigniti.com.