Right Mobile Testing Solution: Best Practices and Considerations

Every single day, organizations in different fields are adding mobile apps to their work environments and overall business strategy. As the mobile app development market becomes increasingly dynamic, competitive, and fast-paced, older traditional testing methods for software are now becoming fairly obsolete, not to mention inappropriate in the mobile app QA processes. The sheer multiplicity of platforms, devices, and networks has made the issue of selecting the right mobile testing solution an absolute priority for any organization that intends to maintain and strengthen itself in the market.

Things to consider

There are three major mobile platforms (iOS, Windows, and Android), and QA teams need to manage increasingly fast production cycles while testing apps for these different platforms. As the world goes mobile, the changing landscape now poses a number of challenges, and demands that organizations conduct a thorough investigation of the best, most suitable mobile testing solutions in order to bolster their overall business strategy. Let’s take a look at some of the more important considerations.

1. The variety of device operating systems: The successful launch of any new mobile software entails conducting rigorous tests on several different device platform combinations. With new versions of the OS being announced every year, and multiple end users still using the legacy OS versions, testing the app on the varied OS versions is very important. Also, sometimes, a few of the new features available with the latest OS versions are utilized by an app, and then it is very important to test the backward compatibility of the app.
2. The variety of device screen resolutions: Along with updates to the OS and software features, the mobile device screens are also coming in a variety of resolutions. Many applications crash when the app is accessed with a device with unsupported/untested resolution. Testing on various popular device resolutions is thus very important to ensure the app does not crash.
3. The variety of OEM device/software: Certain OEMs have their own OS wrapper on top of the Android, thus providing additional features and testing the app to ensure no crash occurs in such devices is very important.
4. Geo location and carrier consideration: There are specific apps that are available in certain Geo locations only for certain carriers. Considering these limitations/features of the app during testing, it is highly important to ensure that app crashes and poor app ratings in the marketplace are reduced.
5. The importance of automated testing: As development cycles become increasingly shorter, it’s also important to cut down the time for QA procedures. The automation of regression and functional testing is now a must in agile development processes. The obvious benefit of automation is that a higher number of tests can be carried out on a wider range of operating systems and devices in shorter time, and with less lifecycle management investment. This significantly reduces QA spending, expands coverage, and quickens the resolution of problems and errors. It is also effective to write a single script, independent of the device, and then apply that script repeatedly on different devices and operating systems.
6. Suitable testing tools: The selection of the best automation tools is contingent upon correctly integrating them in test environments. The tools must be compatible with a range of web browsers, and should be reusable from OS to OS. So in this regard, having the most efficient app testing process, depends on choosing tools that are compatible with a range of devices and operating systems, integrating automation in the early dev stages, performing mixed testing with emulators, and conducting feasibility tests to support a wide range of platforms.

Concluding thoughts

It’s impossible to dispute the importance of mobile app development for any company’s corporate strategy. To ensure the smoothness of development operations, selecting the most efficient and inexpensive mobile testing solution is absolutely crucial for achieving business success. There is a need for automation, in order to make mobile app testing procedures more robust, stable, reliable, accurate, and efficient, so that the final product’s time to market is greatly reduced.

Automation should ideally also be independent of device and platform, implemented at the earliest stages of the development cycle. QA teams should be granted permission to make use of a wide range of devices while running one script as the base model for error correction and glitch resolution. And, finally, the automation of regression and functional testing, as well as performing non-functional testing for maximum safety, coverage, and adaptability, is also necessary to ensure that the finalized mobile apps go to the consumer as refined and polished as they can possibly be.

Cigniti’s state-of-the-art mobile test lab uses the latest and best in mobile testing to bring you better quality and quicker time-to-market. We offer fine-tuned mobile testing services supported by our proven testing approach, Proprietary Testing IP (ETAS), and mobile testing capabilities through our Mobile Centre of Excellence. Discover the Cigniti Advantage today.