The Need for Mobile Application Testing
In the current market of technology based applications and products, almost all the business services are compatible with mobile devices. Mobile applications are global entities now. They are everywhere – in E- Commerce, E-Bidding, E-learning, E-Reservations, E- banking, and social media. The usage of Mobile application is exploding across the world today as consumers of the web applications expect a continued access of the same web services through their mobiles while away from their computers.
Mobile applications are becoming the critical aspect of corporate profitability so rapidly that many of the web based applications are contemplating the direction of going the ‘App Only’ way. That is the desktop application to be discontinued and the services to be made available only via mobile apps. This has complicated the already existing challenges in the software delivery as consumers have very high expectations of the application quality which they install on their devices. Applications are expected to be:
• Responsive
• Stable and secure
• 100% uptime 24X7
• be supported with equal efficiency on any mobile platform
This necessitates a comprehensive mobile testing strategy for not only getting the applications into the market but also keep them in the competition.
CHALLENGES:
Mobile Application Testing is different and more challenging than that of the traditional desktop web applications. The major challenge in Mobile Testing is the continuous increase in the variety of mobile devices; mobile operation systems, firmware updates and other customizations call for a large set of testing permutations. This correspondingly increases the cost of Quality Assurance for the organization.
The key considerations for planning a testing strategy can be summarized as follows:
• Maximize the test coverage by an optimal mix of emulators and physical devices.
• Select an effective automated testing tool thus reducing the cost of regression testing.
• Consider the different kinds of testing.
• Perform the test processes mainly on Wi-Fi networks and use the network tools to simulate the network connectivity and other network parameters.
TYPES OF MOBILE TESTING:
The main types and sub-types of Mobile Testing can be categorized as follows:
• Functional
– Validation
– Regression / Smoke
– Offline Accessibility
• Non – Functional
– Network Strength/ Outage /Recovery
– Peripheral
• Application Performance
– Network & CPU Usage
– Rendering Time
• Acceptability
– User Experience
– Competitive Analysis
• Interrupt
– Interruptions from Voice/SMS
– Effects of Notifications
– Removal of Battery/Cable
• Memory Leak and Security
– Memory leaks & usage
– Garbage Collection
– Data Retention and Cache Review
– Security Auditing, Scanning and Penetration
– Transmission
• Installation
– Uninstall, Reinstall and Upgradation
– New App Installation
• Vulnerability
– Open Web Application Security Project
– Static & Dynamic Code Analysis
– Encryption of Data
– Conformance Testing as per the marketplace guidelines
• Language
– Locale Validation
– Locale Data Generation
The various types of testing to be performed on each application depends on the type of application, the target audience and the distribution channel. Also with the agile methodology implemented the requirement of additional testing cycle is created. This is also required when a new device in launched in the market.
CONCLUSION
To build without testing is a very insensible approach. Most of the negative reviews on mobile applications are based on crashes, battery outage and poor network performance. An optimized combination of manual and automated Mobile Testing can solve these issues and help the developers to prevent failure of the program. Mobile Applications and services have become a strategy for organizations all over the world. It is also very easy for businesses to get their deployment strategy go wrong. This can easily trip up businesses if Mobile Testing and Quality Assurance is not applied from the very early stages of development.
