What is Mobile Testing? A Beginner's Guide

There has been tremendous growth in mobile users, and the mobile market is growing. People look for mobile applications to do their work on the go, and several applications are available. With the development of many applications every day, testing each aspect of mobile applications is getting more critical. Testing ensures that the users get a fantastic experience by eliminating potential loopholes and endpoints for threats.  Testing mobile applications test their functionality, consistency, speed, performance, and other factors that make an application out of the box from its competitors. An application must be thoroughly tested to impact and attract potential customers.  Consistency and quality are critical factors in mobile performance and any other business aspect, so we must conduct proper mobile Android and IOS testing methods. If your company's websites are also available for mobile devices, you must not ignore the critical mobile app testing criteria and challenges. As the applications have evolved, you must develop advanced mobile testing strategies. This article has mentioned what mobile testing is, why you need it, how it boosts business, challenges, performance metrics of mobile applications, and other information.

What is Mobile App Testing?

Before launching an application, you must ensure that the application is working as expected on every possible mobile device. The mobile application must undergo testing to ensure its proper working, high performance, consistency, excellent user experience, etc. Testing will provide an environment for running the applications to feel using them. Being aware of the impatient behavior of the users, you need to ensure that there is no lag or error within your application. For this purpose, mobile testing came into the picture. Mobile app testing ensures running a set of multiple tests on a mobile-based application to check if it is working as expected or not. Also, check if the application meets the user's needs and is set to launch. Mobile app testing includes several testing categories depending on which aspect you want to test., such as (functional, performance, security, etc.) and mobile-specific ones (interruption, memory leakage, geographical location, set up, installation, etc.). Mobile app testing can be a complex process due to the availability of thousands of screen resolutions, supporting several operating systems, compatibility to all kinds of connection types, etc.; without running these tests, you cannot proceed with a successful mobile app launch. Mobile app testing ensures an excellent application quality that can boost your sales. Before you start testing your mobile application, make sure that you consider the following aspects for a successful test.

• For a successful testing process, always choose the proper testing method. You can test your mobile applications on actual devices by sharing the .apk files or emulators, providing a phone-like feel. Also, you can leverage the real device clouds, allowing you to access thousands of devices remotely to run concurrent tests and store results.

• Ensure you have sufficient test coverage to proceed further with another testing process. If not, you can use other ways to boost it.

• Always have a solid testing strategy to improve your testing process and get better results. You can go for continuous testing ad mobile app test automation to make the testing process more efficient. 

• Initially, you must test your mobile app manually. But, to test it across other devices and platforms, you can automate the test process. You can decide which task you want to automate to avoid manual efforts among several testing tasks. 

Different Types of Mobile Testing

Mobile testing does not mean you can only test mobile apps, but you can test the mobile version of any website. Mobile testing checks if the app runs flawlessly and is compatible with all devices and operating systems. To ensure overall performance, you can conduct several types of mobile testing depending on the requirement. Each test has a different purpose. Let's take a look.

Functional Testing

You can test the user flows within the app. This testing verifies every function of an app if it responds as expected. Customers expect a flawless application so that they do not uninstall it and move to another competitor. You can consider several factors in mobile app functional testing, such as.

• Installing and launching applications seamlessly.

• Simple and quick sign-in.

• Proper functioning of input fields.

• Seamless transactions.

Interruption Testing

This testing checks how a mobile application responds during an unexpected interruption. The application can behave abnormally depending on the type of interruption. The tester might predict what possible interruptions will be there while using mobile applications. Several factors can impact the working based on what type of mobile application. Still, you can consider testing the following aspects for your mobile application.

• Interruption due to incoming calls, messages, etc.

• Working during the low battery.

• Shutting down of device during running.

• OS upgrade.

• Loss and connecting back to the network.

Localization Testing

This testing tests the features of the mobile application depending on its geographical location. Since most apps cover the global user base, including localized features are helpful for users, such as enabling different languages, E-commerce in local currency as per the local laws and regulations. Customers always prefer their apps to be aligned with their laws, language, and device accessibility to be adjusted as per their preferences. Localization testing ensures that these features are activated and function in suitable locations. Conducting localization testing is challenging as most QA teams do not have the required access to test coverage and resources.

Speed Testing

One of the engaging features of any mobile application is how efficiently and smoothly it runs and loads on your device. If an application takes more than expected time, the user is more likely to exit from that app. Thus, speed testing is crucial to ensure an efficient user experience.

Memory Leak Testing

A memory leak is when the app fails to return the occupied for temporary use to function. The available memory starts draining, and the app cannot function properly. Frequently opening or closing an application can result in a small memory leak, resulting in poor performance or app termination. Memory leaks occur due to bugs in programming, so you must test every application for this error.  In Memory leak testing, an app is tested on multiple devices to check the app performance with different memory capabilities and optimize the app according to a different configuration.

Usability or UX testing

The mobile app's success depends on keeping the users engaging with its look and appeal. It is essential to run usability tests with actual customers on real devices. This testing checks if the created mobile app is user-friendly, easy to use, and intuitive in providing a seamless user experience. 

Performance Testing

You must test the performance of your application under different and crucial conditions. It includes putting pressure on your device and checking if it malfunctions in non-optimal conditions. You can check for the device's performance, network, server, and recovery capabilities.

Security Testing

Today, people are getting more conscious of the security of their data. Due to digitization, everything is now operated using the internet that opens the endpoints for various threats. Thus, security testing is essential to ensure that their critical data is secured with their application.

Benefits of Implementing Mobile App Testing

Ensuring the proper functioning of your application is the topmost priority, and mobile testing is the way to ensure it. There are several benefits of implementing mobile testing at the right stage. We have mentioned some of the benefits.

• It ensures that the application is functioning seamlessly and as expectedly. The QA specialists check if the user can download a specific application to various devices successfully and has compatibility with the underlying infrastructure as intended. To ensure this, the QA team uses real devices (instead of simulators) to test an app and guarantees to deliver a fully functioning application to the market.

• Testing enables the specialists to impersonate as the end-users and check the look and feel of an application. They also check if an application has logical and intuitive navigation and is easy to use in various situations. In such a way, the testers understand what triggers the users and predict if customers will use it.

• When the customers get what they are looking for in an app, they trust that app. With mobile testing, the customers will get high-end performance and user experience.

• Every testing process needs initial investments, allowing the members to conduct testing at every application development stage. It helps in reducing the time, effort, and total cost to facilitate fast delivery. 

Challenges of Mobile Testing

Due to the increased interest in mobile devices, several mobile applications are developing at a high rate, increasing the need for rigorous mobile app testing. Below are some mobile testing challenges.

• Nowadays, you can find several smartphones with different screen specifications. Different models have different screen resolutions, and sizes are available per different customers' needs. Thus, the apps are developed to be compatible with every screen specification.

The screen size significantly impacts how an application will run on different devices. It is one of the main challenges that must be tested for every application. You can resize the apps as per available screen resolutions to maintain consistency across all devices. 

• Mobile network bandwidth is one of the crucial factors that need to be tested. Every user wants their mobile applications to run smoothly, and the backend team ensures that. If you do not test an app, it will not be optimized per the large bandwidth and hang during data transfer between the end-user and the server. Thus, it is necessary to test the apps and mobile websites in different network conditions to analyze their response and performance. 

• Different mobile models come with unique specifications and might show different working on different models. Different users have different expectations from their smartphones. Thus, companies have to prepare their applications to cater to different audiences.

Users have high demands and want their apps to be updated constantly to keep them up to date as per new trends. Thus testing is essential, but considering a large user bandwidth might increase the testing time.

• You must also test your mobile applications for heavy battery usage. This might be challenging as a diverse application should be compatible with any type of battery without draining the device. But, the unexpected surge in installing the apps on a device has been hard on the battery. Mobile manufacturing companies must use solid batteries to cater to different users' requirements to deal with this problem.

What Factor Influences Mobile Testing?

Below are the factors that are important and influences mobile testing.

• Mobile Devices:

   

  it includes testing the application under different resolutions and operating systems to check if it is compatible with the underlying OS.

• Mobile Simulators:

   

  A simulator is a software application that behaves like an actual mobile device. These simulators are a cost-effective testing solution. In the case of simulators, the testing is never interrupted due to various factors such as slow network issues and ensures fast processing. The testers can access the simulators to understand the application's behavior in the local storage environment. It ensures easy and smooth installation and boosts product delivery.

• Cloud Testing Tools:

   

  Testing a mobile app is a crucial task as it includes testing on various devices, operating systems, and different mobile versions. You need to test each function to ensure the flawless running of an app. You need to invest a lot to configure different testing labs. You can go for cloud-based mobile app testing tools like Pcloudy, Perfecto, and the AWS Device Farm to seamlessly interact with your Android, iOS, and web apps in real-time.

• Network Conditions:

   

  testing mobile applications under different network conditions ensures the application's proper behavior. 

Mobile App Testing Tools in 2022

The mobile testing strategy depends on the use of diverse modern tools. You can use any mobile app testing tool to implement mobile app testing practices. If you have limited time and budget, you can find the affordable tools below for mobile app testing.

• Test Complete

It is an automated testing tool to test real mobile devices or emulators quickly. You need to run several iterated UI tests on a single platform. This tool will assist you with testing hybrid mobile apps, supporting both Android and iOS app testing. You can choose the automated test scripts from the VBScript, JavaScript, Python, etc.

• Test IO

This tool tests the mobile apps in real-time, ensuring seamless working on almost all OS platforms. These testing tools help professional testers to detect internal bugs. It comes with flexible testing measures to understand the diverse needs and requirements of the clients and provide faster results. It eliminates the QA tea's Bottleneck on-demand to cater to your expectations.

• Appium

Appium is a preferable testing tool for professional testers. It is well-suited for web and mobile app testing, ensuring seamless testing of hybrid applications. You can use it for automated functional testing to improve the overall functionality. Using this tool eliminates the need to alter the underlying codes for the applications to be run on various platforms. You can seamlessly integrate this tool with both Android and an iOS platform.

• Robotium

Robotium is a testing tool suitable only for android apps with an automated testing framework. Robotium provides black-box testing for android-based applications. It uses JavaScript programming language to prepare the test scripts. This tool also requires other things for seamless running: Android SDK, Eclipse for the test project, Android development Kit, and JDK.

• Xamarin.UITest

Xamarin.UITest is used for testing the UI acceptance for iOS or Android applications. It has test scripts written in C#. You can seamlessly integrate Xamarin.UITest with most of the Visual Studio Products.

Conclusion 

To ensure the proper functioning of mobile applications, testing is a crucial task that needs to be implemented before you launch them. Today, people are always on the go, thus having apps for every purpose, from messaging to accessing bank accounts and making transactions. Thus, it is necessary to maintain the security of the apps and the data stored within them. All this is possible if the application is rigorously tested for various factors such as security, UX, responsiveness, memory leak, network issues, etc. If your application is successful in all unexpected situations, then the application is safe to launch. So, always test your application irrespective of how much time, effort, and money you need to invest, as you will get a better ROI with such investment.