Testing Challenges Post Mobile Application Development
Mobile app development is a rapidly proliferating phenomenon worldwide owing to the user convenience the developers promise. With an app for a particular business or personal task, it seems as if life has become a cakewalk. Whether the apps are related to navigation, m-commerce app, or simply gaming, they serve the respective purpose significantly and are even pretty affordable, in fact free at times.
However, it really needs the companies to put forth thoughtful steps in order to check whether the application is functional or not. During app testing, a host of factors hence require to be taken care of, some of them are listed here:
Device type: Depending on whether the mobile device is a smartphone, tab, iPhone, iPad, etc., their keypads, screen size & resolution, hardware and more, keep on changing.
Mobile platforms: There is a profusion of mobile platforms and operating systems for which apps are available at present. Each of these OS, whether iOS, Android, Windows Phone or BlackBerry, among others are often hard to test using any single method.
Operators: Network operators, such as those with GSM or CDMA facility may also pose severe threat to app testing methods, due to variations in network infrastructures and limited information flow.
Despite these challenges, the professional testers keep on pushing their limits to check mobile applications for proper functioning on a number of criterion. Some of the important testing methods that they use thus include:
Functional testing: As the name suggests, this method checks appropriate working of the mobile apps. It intends to test the app for fully functional UI, flow of calls, etc. It involves the use of numerous test cases in terms of OS, browsers, device and more.
Performance testing: After the mobile app development, it is duly tested for its performance in adverse circumstances. Considerations such as low bandwidth, latency and packet loss are taken care of. Other points such as poor network, low battery and limited memory are also equally important. Besides these, a worthwhile test case is to check the app’s performance during its use by multiple users.
Usability testing: This step makes it sure that the app is able to achieve what it is meant for. If unfortunately it is not tested satisfyingly and is launched for the users, it is likely to get odd reviews, which is a suicidal attempt on the part of the concerned mobile application development company. Hence, it is necessary to ensure that the app is proving true to expectations and is able to achieve the intended target.
Testing for memory leakage: The problem of memory leak occurs if the app ceases to manage the allocated memory, thereby leading to its malfunctioning or bad performance. Testing for this flaw is of high significance on all the widely used mobile platforms including Android, iOS and so on, since it has a big role to play in the app’s flawless working.
Once a newly developed mobile app undergoes all the essential testing methods, chances for it to perform above par among the targeted users rises to manifolds. Though, it is hard to test it owing to a host of platforms, devices and network on which they run, still proper testing does matter a lot, post mobile application development.
