Mobile App Testing

In our articles, we often talk about the analysis and its priceless role in any project. And this the honest truth, almost 50% of the project’s success depends on the proper analysis and planning. Especially it concerns the timing and risks, which are calculated in advance and always laid at the very beginning of the project.

But in addition to the analysis itself, in the development stage, there are other processes, about which we would like to tell. Believe it or not, these stages are no less interesting and exciting. And we have something to tell you!

Have you ever thought about the cost of errors in the mobile application? Even the most insignificant, that can not affect the speed of the application and to appear on a particular device, with a particular firmware version? The end price of this error may be suchlike that even the most functional application can get bad ratings and reviews in the official Android or iOS app store. That can lead to a decrease of interest in your product, and a drop in ratings as a wholly negative attitude to the application and the brand, because it is not known how quickly users will be able to update the application if you released a corrected version. In such a situation it will be difficult to attract new customers, after all, the bad reviews and low ratings adversely affect the ranking of applications. Guess you would not ever install an application that is not working properly or not working at all.

Mobile testing is a fascinating, but very time-consuming and complicated process, because you need to keep in mind a lot of factors that can affect the performance of the application. This problem is especially acute on a device running the Android. After all, on this os built many different devices with different screen resolutions, processors, and other system modules. And all this “sandwich” have to work quickly and correctly. No compromises.

We believe testing is one of the important stages of the development of applications, games or services. If you would like to learn about: mobile application testing, what is mobile testing and how to test a mobile app - today is your day! But first things first.

Quality Assurance

In general, “QA mobile testing” - is ensuring a decent quality of manufactured products. It is important to note that we share this concept on several different stages with different meanings. One of these stages - is a quality control (QC).

If to talk not the engineering language, by this concept we mean some checks on conformity already written modules (or entire product) with the expected result. For example:

• Does the application meet the approved specifications;

• Inspection of specifications and their writing, management plan on the project working process, test documentation, etc;

• Code review. Regarding the writing of standards, security, architecture building, etc.

To be brief, the mobile applications testing responsible for monitoring the quality of the processes that the team uses to create all kind of projects. And maybe someone would have stopped in his narration about the quality, but we can not. Returning to the written above, we wrote that invest a lot of different things in such a seemingly simple phrase like “QA”. The fact that above this all, we meant the Quality Management - QM. What do we understand when we talk about this kind of management? Let’s see:

• Quality Planning - this is our favorite point because here we are talking about analysis and planning. Product quality is not the mythical properties of the program, it is a rule. The rule that every serious A brand should establish for itself . After all, the quality of the product, as well as its implementation, is thing you need to think ahead. At this step, we choose processes, standards, acceptance criteria, which may be in time to each individual project.

• Quality Assurance. What to say, many developers forget about this point and leave the job at the mercy of QA Engineers, although many of the problems could have been avoided before testing stage;

• Strictly quality control - mobile application test plan verification and validation;

• Test results analysis - analysis again. After all, data collection and/or correction is good, but preventing errors and quality control of forecasting the time - even better.

• Quality improvement. Not only tangible, but very necessary process, especially in fast-growing companies. After changing development processes, test processes are changing too, hence the quality control. It is constant work to optimize the activities of control, automation of routine tasks, and costs reduce.

Testing

Being mobile app tester is really exciting and varied work because performing testing you can touch the beautiful and participate in its improvement and perfection. If you think that all the work is banal clicking / swiping the buttons and screens on a different device, you are right only in part, because testing involves many steps towards achieving the ideal. In our company, we distinguish such types as:

1. Functional testing:

Such testing is working with pre-specified behavior, i.e. It is based on a comparison of features and specifications of a component or system. Can be carried out at all levels of testing, and in two aspects: the requirements and business processes;

2. Performance (or stress) testing:

A special kind of testing that simulates the work of a certain number of users (or concurrent transactions) on any resource. Thus it is possible to verify have you allocated enough power on your server and / or if your hosting provider can carry out the influx of a huge number of simultaneous users;

3. Security testing:

Used to test the safety of a particular module or system as a whole, as well as to analyze the risks associated with possible attacks or misuse of the application;

4. Compatibility testing:

Application or service testing with various other software, hardware, different versions of operating systems, localization and more. This helps to determine how quickly the system works (if works at all) in a particular environment, which includes hardware and interaction with other software (system) products;

5. Usability testing:

We can talk about usability of applications a long time until we are faced with an application, the interaction with such can be counter-intuitive, and the use of basic functions - not obvious. You agree that you’d hardly started to use the application if you need to read the instructions for a few hours, and would prefer a more intuitive analog. In order to avoid such incidents, we conducting usability testing. More understandable application = more competitive application. So before you enable the user to use the product, please check it by your own;

6. Failover and Recovery Testing

You can not talk about the successful application or service does not imply such tests. At this stage, we check the product on the ability to withstand errors or failures and to recover quickly after it (in the case of emergencies). This type of testing is essential for services which work is connected to the clock connection (such as a client-server architecture), where the slightest delay in the event of equipment failure can lead to unforeseen consequences.

Conclusion

At the end, we want to say that the mobile app testing for us is not just a dry checklist items strikethrough, but a serious work, which we perform very scrupulously because nothing characterizes good company as the quality of its products and business processes.

It is impossible to overestimate the benefits of the quality control department as the release of raw or not fully tested product is fraught with additional costs for a thorough inspection and debugging of the application. That, in turn, could lead to an increase in the re-start costs, advertising, and marketing.

If you have any questions about how to do mobile testing - you can always ask us. Do not hesitate, we will help you with all the professionalism available to us - our customers are always satisfied with our services.