Few Ways to Test Mobile Apps under Real User Conditions

To make a mobile app popular and profitable in the longer run, businesses must get its user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) tested thoroughly. The businesses further need to test the app using real devices and under real user conditions. Most businesses use emulators and simulators to assess the application’s functionality and performance across a variety of devices without investing in real devices. But the emulators often fail to provide detailed information about the application’s performance on a specific device or in a particular user environment. That is why; it has become essential for enterprises to explore ways to test the mobile app under real world conditions using various devices, platforms, users, networks and test configurations.

Exploring Options to Test Your Mobile App under Real User Conditions

Field Testing

The field testing model requires businesses to deploy testers in field. The deployment will enable the testers to assess the mobile app across a wide range of networks and service providers. For instance, the testers can assess the application’s functionality and performance under a number of network connections including 2G, 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi and cellular. Likewise, they can test the application with no or poor network connectivity, switch from one network to another, and identify the hot spots and dead spots.

However, the testers have to use user scenarios and mobile persona additionally to effectuate field testing. These two techniques will help testers to make the tests more realistic and obtain more reliable test results. As a fictitious identity, mobile personal represents a group of users who will use the mobile app. When the testers are familiar with the targeted users of the app, it becomes easier for them to simulate their actions and behaviours realistically. Further, they can create a variety of test ideas by keeping in mind the targeted user group.

On the other hand, user scenario, as a narrative, describes the usage of the mobile app, and how it fits into the lifestyle of users. The testers have to identify scenarios according to individual members of the targeted user group. They can further customize the user scenarios based on mobile persona. On the whole, the testers need to combine mobile persona and user scenarios to understand how different users will use the mobile app, and test the app effectively in various contexts.

User Testing

As its name implies, the real world testing model involves real users in the mobile testing process. A business can release the mobile app to diverse users to get it evaluated on a wider variety of devices, platforms, networks and environments. Further, the feedback and suggestion received from real users will help the enterprise to deliver a high quality mobile application. Each business also has option to choose from a number of user testing methods. Some of these methods involve selected end users, whereas others emphasize on in-depth auditing of the application’s usability and user experience.

A business can always save money by getting the application tested by people selected randomly. The randomly selected users will use the application, and share their views and feedback. Despite being informal, the testing technique helps businesses to get relevant test results. Also, an enterprise has option to share the mobile app with diverse users through an online platform, and get the usability testing performed remotely. It can further pay the tester for the bugs identified by him, or provide a detailed survey questionnaire. The developers can evaluate the feedback and suggestions shared by the remote users, and take the required actions to make the mobile app flawless.

A business also has option to get the mobile app testing by a seasoned user testing professional. The professional will audit the application’s usability and user experience thoroughly, and provide his feedback along with identifying the defects. The enterprise can further deploy different user testing professionals to get the app tested based on diverse thought processes.  Alternatively, the business can also invite end users to visit its in-house usability lab and test the mobile application, while being observed by the user testing professional.

Many enterprises nowadays opt for crowd-sourced testing to identify all flaws in an application, with reduced testing time and cost. But a business has to consider several factors while making the application available to real users for testing. It is always important for the business to pick the right real world testing option, and implement a custom strategy by keeping in mind the pros and cons of the option.  

5 Top Sins to Avoid in Mobile Testing

Nowadays, the user experience delivered by a mobile app determines its popularity and profitability. While testing a mobile app, the testers need to identify and eliminate all bugs that affect the application’s user interface (UI) and user experience (UX). But testers have to identify and eliminate all defects in a mobile app within a shorter amount of time. That is why; it becomes essential for QA professionals to avoid a number of common but critical mobile app testing mistakes.

5 Mobile App Testing Mistakes Each Tester Must Avoid

1) Not Focusing on Mobile Experience

Many reports have highlighted that most users download mobile apps based on their looks rather than functionality. So the testers must focus on testing the app’s user interface (UI) thoroughly and repeatedly. It is also important for testers to allocate more testing time to UI than other functionality. They must evaluate the UI thoroughly to ensure that the mobile app looks plain and simple, while allowing users to find information or perform an action in a quicker and more convenient way. They can even check if the UI design can save users’ time by providing special features like one-click facility, automatic spelling checks, and infinite scrolling.

2) Ignoring Factors Affecting Cross Browser Compatibility

Each mobile app must deliver quality experience across many devices and browsers to keep the users engaged. But testers often fail to identify the factors that affect the cross browser compatibility of the application. While testing a mobile website, the professionals must try to find out the reason behind such UX bugs. Often the cross browser compatibility of a mobile app is affected due to use of specific scripting language, or add-ons or plug-ins. Likewise, the document object model (DOM) of the application may prevent it from performing seamlessly across many browsers. The testers can always use specialized tool to assess the app’s cross-browser compatibility more efficiently. 

3) Not Assessing Quality of Links

The quality of links will have a huge impact on the user experience of mobile web apps. But testers often forget to assess the quality of links while testing a mobile website. They must remember that there are a number of factors that can make a hyperlink outdated or broken. For instance, changes made to the website’s structure or external resources, any document or old web pages removed from the site, or any changes made to a URL can cause broken links. So the testers must identify the broken or outdated links, and report them along with the root cause. They can even consider using a variety of tools to identify the broken or outdated links more efficiently.

4) Inadequate Usability Testing

Nowadays, each app must deliver richer user experience to become profitable in the longer run. But often testers fail to perform adequate usability testing due to constraints related to time and resources. The inadequate usability testing can have a huge impact on the application’s user experience, hence its popularity and profitability. That is why; the mobile app testing strategy must focus extensively on usability testing. The testers can further use a variety of tools to identify and eliminate the bugs affecting the application’s user experience. Likewise, they must help developers to fix the UX bugs effectively by providing detailed and specific information about the defects.

5) Not Mixing Real Devices and Emulators Properly

The emulators make it easier for testers to assess the mobile app’s functionality and performance across a variety of devices without investing in many real devices. But the emulators cannot provide adequate information about how the app performs on a specific device or a particular carrier network. So the testers still need real devices to gather more relevant information about the application’s quality, performance and user experience. However, it is always important for the testers to maintain a proper balance between real devices and emulators in the testing environment. They can always consider combining the emulators with a load testing tool to assess how the application performs under various loads.

The testers must remember that various mobile apps cannot be tested by implementing a single testing strategy. It is always important for them to make and implement custom test plans according to the type, usage and functionality of the mobile app. The custom mobile app testing strategy will help them to avoid a number of fatal mistakes.

3 Great Tools to Test Enterprise Mobile Apps

As an app developer your primary goal should be to see that you app gets accepted by the customers and the fact that they are in love with it. How can you do that? Simple! Just make sure that your app is free of bugs, can be used easily, can undertake load, is safe to use and is easy to understand. All these can be ensured by simply testing the mobile app that you have created with the help of tools to test enterprise mobile apps so that the glitches can be identified and rectified before it gets launched for the use by the customers.

You can check the enterprise mobile apps with the help of old school manual methods or you can use the various tools that are available on the net to check you app in order to identify the various problem regions or bugs.

1.    TestFairy: TestFairy is probably one of the best mobile app testing apps which is available absolutely free of cost to the developers and has a lucrative offer for the enterprise mobile app developing teams. It provides the developers with a detailed video recording of the various tests that are performed from the clients’ point of view including CPU, Memory, GPS, Network monitoring, logs, crash reports etc. In case of Android apps you just need to upload the APK file and the tool will use the necessary hooks to test your app. But you may require to insert a few codes in case you are testing an iOS app.
2.       Google Analytics: It’s by Google; obviously it is one of the best. Google has taken a huge leap in extending its support to the testing of the enterprise mobile apps as mobile apps are gaining huge popularity in the recent days. If you are familiar to using Google Analytics on your computer for testing the web based apps then using the mobile version will be a piece of cake for you. Just like the computer tool the audience page will give you a detailed report of all the current, returning and the new users of the app as well as the experience they have using the app. The tool is perfect for both the iOS and the Android apps. It also provides the developers with the number crashes. This is one of the best testing tools for the apps launched by the big e-commerce platforms.
3.     Google Play Native App Beta Testing: The previous enterprise mobile app testing tool was specifically for checking the analytical aspects of the app. However, Google Play Native App Beta Testing is meant for checking the all round aspects of your app. If you are an Android app developer then you will obviously have access to the developers’ platform on Google which you can access using your personal account or you can create a new account in case you are working on behalf of an enterprise (as recommended by Google). This tool not only helps you to test the app that you have created but it will also help you with various tips to perform better testing or develop better apps along with creating bulk user reports and deep linking the app with the websites so that you can get reports on engagement of the app along with optimizing the search results of the same.

These are some of the best tools to test enterprise mobile apps which you can use to check your app before you launch it for the use by your customers to ensure absolute customer satisfaction.

Xamarin Test Cloud and Its Importance to Mobile Testing

As a cross-platform mobile application development platform, Xamarin makes it easier developers to build native apps for iOS, Android and Windows using a single code base written in C#. But the developers still have to put additional time and effort to ensure that the application runs flawlessly on a wide variety of devices. They need to perform elaborate user interface (UI) acceptance testing to assess the app’s usage and user interaction effectively.

As a cloud-based service, Xamarin Test Cloud is designed to help businesses to automate the UI acceptance testing effort. It enables testers to assess the application’s look, feel, functionality and performance across a wide variety of devices without putting any extra time and effort. There are also a number of reasons why many enterprises nowadays opt for Xamarin Test Cloud.

Why Use Xamarin Test Cloud for UI Acceptance Testing of Mobile Apps?

Choose from Two Frameworks

Xamarin Test Cloud allows testers to write automated UI tests using either Xamarin.UITest or Calabash. Each framework runs smoothly on the application’s user interface, and tests its behavior accurately. The experienced QA professionals can use Xamarin.UITest to write tests in C#, while taking advantage of a popular testing library like NUnit. Likewise, the testers can use Calabash to write tests based on behavior-driven development methodology. Calabash enables them to write tests in Ruby, while taking advantage of Cucumber.  They can simply follow the grammatical rules imposed by Cucumber to develop test scripts in the language of businesses.

Test Mobile Applications on 1000+ Devices

Nowadays, each mobile app must deliver quality experience across a wide variety of devices to become popular and profitable. That is why, testers need to perform UI acceptance testing of applications across different models of smartphones, tablets and phablets. Xamarin Test Cloud enables testers to test the code on more than 1000 device. They can simply write the test scripts once, and run the same scripts to against various devices and emulators locally. Likewise, they can simply press a button to run the same tests across a variety of devices on the cloud. So businesses can use Xamarin Test Cloud to assess their mobile applications across a large percentage of mobile devices available in the market. 

Assess Various Aspects of a Mobile App

To test a mobile app effectively, the testers must focus on many factors. For instance, they must keep in mind the various ways to interact and use the mobile device. Likewise, they also need to need to assess the application’s functionality and performance in various environments. In addition to automating UI acceptance testing, Xamarin Test Cloud also helps users to assess the application thoroughly. The users can avail the cloud-based service to test the application under a variety of network conditions including 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi and no network. Also, they can assess the mobile application’s functionality accurately by simulating common user behaviors like rotating the device, tapping and swiping the screen, pressing any button, switching network connection, changing GPS location, and accessing hardware like camera.

Work with Popular Continuous Integration Tools

Often QA professionals have to test a mobile app repeatedly and frequently to identify and eliminate all defects. Xamarin Test Cloud allows users to create individual tests and functionality locally, and then submit the application or tests to the cloud through a command prompt. The testers have option to submit the tests to Xamarin Test Cloud either manually or though continuous integration (CI) tools. They also have option to work with some of the commonly used CI tools like TeamCity, Jenkins and Team Foundation Server. The CI tools make it easier for QA professionals to test the mobile app at frequent intervals and during different phases of development. 

Generate Detailed Reports

Various stakeholders in the project need detailed and accurate test results to take crucial decisions related to the mobile application’s release and promotion. So the testers have to present the test results in a detailed yet easy-to-understand format. Xamarin Test Cloud makes it easier for users to generate detailed test reports. The testers have option to generate reports for individual tests. Also, they can enhance the quality of reports by including high-resolution screenshots. Along with device logs, stack traces and similar debugging information, the test reports also provide useful results based on test duration, memory consumption, CPU access and similar performance data.  

However, it is also important for users to understand some of the major limitations of Xamarin Test Cloud. The cloud-based service does not allow testers to run different sets of tests simultaneously. So they have to queue up various sets of tests sequentially. Likewise, Xamarin Test Cloud cannot be used effectively to test certain hardware features like NFC technology and Bluetooth Pairing. But the enterprises can still use Xamarin Test Cloud to automate the UI acceptance testing process effectively

7 Factors that are Influencing Rise in Mobile Testing

The advancement of technology has provided us with better devices which help us to communicate on the go. It has also provided us with factors that have hugely influenced the rise in mobile testing that helps the organizations to provide their customers with the best app possible. This helps them to gain the loyalty of their customers and stay ahead in the competition too.

1. Wide Range of Mobile Devices: The first and foremost point that needs to be discussed and which plays a major role in the rise of mobile testing is the fact that innumerable devices are available in the market currently which have various features that make them unique and the mobile apps need to be tested according to the individual settings of these.
2. Wide Range of Mobile Platforms: When done with the devices, you will also have to deal with the various mobile platforms like Windows, Android, iOS etc, on which the various mobiles operate. Each of these platforms works differently and has varying features to donate to the device which also plays a role in the performance of the application you are developing. Hence there is a rise in mobile testing to ensure that they work perfectly.
3. Frequent Updates: Most of the mega mobile companies provide the users with frequent updates of their operating system, which in turn alters the work ability of the application and the device at large. Thus any organization which is launching the mobile app will now have to test their app to make sure that it is at par with the updates of the operating systems and are working well on them.
4. Increased Competition: With the advancement of the technology, people are becoming more tech savvy which has lead to the huge upsurge in the number of apps that have the same working ability as yours. So there is a rise in mobile testing as each individual tries to be the winner by presenting the customers with the best app which will work flawlessly in all the devices available.
5. Richer User Experience: As the developer of the mobile app, your primary goal is to satisfy your users and provide them with exactly what they want. Hence you have to pay attention to several technical aspects to check if the app is delivering perfection or not. Mobile testing helps you to make sure that your app synchronizes all the building blocks that it is made up of and delivers what is made to perform.
6. Changing Performance of the Mobile App: The world has become a lot faster than it used to be and people have lesser and lesser amount of patience. Everyone is on the lookout for faster apps and devices which will complete their work in a jiffy and with utmost preciseness. This is applicable for mobile apps too and hence the mobile testing to ensure quality service.
7. Security Threats: Technology has made a huge advancement in the past decade and so has the security threats. Almost all the apps these days require the users to provide them with their personal details to operate. As your customer is trusting you with their vital personal information, it is your job to make sure that they remain safe. Mobile testing will make sure that you are properly safe guarding your customers information against hackers.

These are some of the major reasons for the rise of mobile testing in today’s world. This has also influenced the development of better methods of mobile testing which will help in building better products.