Panoramic View of Mobile Application Testing

Mobile application testing is the process of assuring the quality of mobile phones, PDAs etc. In other words, it involves the techniques to expose the hidden bugs in the developed application. The testing will be conducted on both software and hardware which comprises R&D testing, certification testing and factory testing. The mobile application testing activities involve – monitoring the application, troubleshooting, testing content and services on real handsets etc. Other than this, it also includes verification of the hardware devices and validation of the software applications.

Today, mobile application testing plays a very important role in the software development life cycle. It is a challenging process and involves checking of programs across different handsets, locations, languages and carriers. As there are a number of complexities in this process, the testing companies hire testing professionals who have the knowledge of the programming and runtime environment. The talented and skilled professionals use advanced methods and perform testing with the help of a number of higher end software testing tools and approaches. The methods and strategies involved in this process are as below –

Static code analysis

This strategy involves the analysis of the software that is performed without executing programs built using that software. The rules of static analysis are available for code written to target a multiple mobile development platform.

Factory testing

This is a kind of sanity check/test on the mobile devices. This is conducted automatically to verify if there are any defects while manufacture or assembling the mobile devices. The further involves – network, battery and signal testing.

Unit testing

This is the test phase where the sections of the mobile development are tested by the developer. It may contain mechanical, hardware and software testing.

Certification testing

This is the final check done, before the mobile device goes into the market. Many companies require mobile devices to confirm with their stated specifications and make sure that the devices will not harm user’s health. This phase involves in checking the compatibility of the device and once the device passes through all the phases of checking, a certification will be issued for it. Many companies outsource the testing and certification to third-party companies to reduce the cost and increase the performance.

Other than the above said, the mobile application testing may involve – Functional, usability and performance testing. There are many companies in India which carry out outsourced and offshore mobile application testing projects. Most of the companies prefer to test their applications on a desktop browser and then will move to device specific bugs. These companies are stuffed with sufficient resources and have valuable technical expertise in implementing the software testing cycle. The companies are provided with a wide range of platform support that permits the testing of any application or device. There are a number of testing tools available on the internet for free to help the developers achieve their objectives.

Source by Anand Raju