Mobile App Testing in Agile Development: Strategies for Success

The quality and performance of mobile applications heavily rely on mobile app testing. Given the growing complexity of these apps, effective testing strategies and tools play a crucial role in ensuring a seamless user experience.

This article explores the most recent testing strategies and tools, offering insights to enhance your mobile app testing procedures. It covers various aspects, from manual to automated testing and functional to non-functional evaluations, encompassing performance and security assessments.

By the conclusion of this article, you will gain comprehensive knowledge about the finest practices and tools for mobile app testing. This understanding will aid in integrating them into your development cycle, thereby ensuring the success of your mobile app. Let’s explore these practices and tools in-depth!

What is Mobile App Testing?

Mobile App Testing encompasses the comprehensive assessment and validation of a mobile application, whether designed for Android or iOS platforms, before its public release. This crucial process ensures that the app fulfills expected technical and business standards.

Effective mobile app testing requires thorough examination across various screen resolutions, operating system iterations, and diverse network bandwidths. This ensures seamless performance across multiple device configurations upon its public launch.

In essence, mobile app testing involves:

• Verifying app performance across different OS versions (e.g., Android 7.0, 8.0, etc.).
• Evaluating app display and functionality in both Portrait and Landscape modes.
• Validating app compatibility and performance under specific settings.
• Assessing app compatibility with mobile sensors such as Gyroscope, Accelerometer, GPS, etc.
• Testing the app’s graphical user interface (GUI) elements like menus, dropdowns, and navigation buttons for functionality and usability.

Importance of Mobile App Testing

Mobile app testing is a pivotal phase in the development journey. It involves scrutinizing a mobile application’s functionality, usability, security, and compatibility across diverse devices and operating systems. Here are several reasons underscoring the importance of mobile app testing:

• Ensuring App Quality

Mobile app testing ensures that the app is of superior quality and operates as intended. This process aids in pinpointing and resolving bugs or flaws before the app hits the market.

• Enhancing User Experience

By identifying user experience issues, mobile app testing contributes to refining the app’s performance. Addressing these concerns leads to a seamless and delightful user experience, critical for retaining and engaging users.

• Compatibility Across Platforms

Mobile app testing confirms The app’s functionality across various platforms and devices. It uncovers compatibility issues and guarantees the app functions seamlessly on diverse platforms.

• Security Assurance

Mobile app testing is instrumental in identifying any potential security vulnerabilities. It protects sensitive user data and safeguards the app against external threats.

• Cost-Effectivenes

Detecting problems early in the web app creation process proves cost-effective. Addressing issues, post-launch can be both expensive and detrimental to the app’s reputation, making early detection and resolution crucial for long-term success.

Categories of Mobile Applications

Broadly, mobile applications fall into three distinct categories:

• Mobile Web Application

Mobile web applications are adaptive versions of websites that adapt to various screen sizes and are accessible through mobile browsers or wrapped within a web view. They function across diverse mobile operating systems and devices. These are sometimes referred to as Progressive Web Apps (PWAs).

• Native Application

Native applications are tailored and coded explicitly for particular mobile devices and their respective operating systems. Crafted using specific Software Development Kits (SDKs), native apps offer a more dependable, swifter, and user-friendly experience.

• Hybrid Application

Hybrid applications amalgamate features from both native and mobile web apps, encapsulated within native containers. These apps are created by blending web technologies with native Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). Hybrid apps often present an economical and quicker development alternative compared to native apps.

Why Develop a Strategy for Mobile App Testing and Its Significance

Establishing a strategy is important in achieving specific objectives by delineating essential testing elements for quality attainment while maximizing coverage within available timeframes. The urgency to launch within tight schedules is increasingly pressing in the mobile app landscape.

The need for a testing strategy becomes paramount to outpace the competition and ensure a prompt, or preferably early, release of a mobile app with exceptional quality. Such a strategy aims to secure superior quality, high performance, and extensive test coverage within limited timelines.

Crucial facets to incorporate within a mobile app testing strategy encompass:

• Device Selection: With abundant mobile devices on the market, testing an application on every available device is virtually impossible. Thus, formulating a strategy that selects devices based on market adoption or anticipated user base proves more pragmatic.
• Emulators/Simulators: Utilizing emulators and simulators presents a more viable alternative, offering broader device coverage at a relatively reduced cost.
• Testing Variety: Crafting a comprehensive test strategy involves outlining the various test types necessary for the mobile application. Aspects like app functionality, target markets, and expected user base dictate specific testing requirements.

Effective Approaches to Mobile App Testing

In mobile app development, testing is crucial to ensure the app’s reliability, user-friendliness, and functionality align with its intended purpose. Here are several strategies for conducting effective testing during the creation of mobile applications:

• Set Clear Testing Objectives

Start by defining specific testing objectives. Determine what aspects require testing, establish success criteria, and outline the types of tests to be executed.

• Choose Suitable Testing Tools

Select appropriate testing tools tailored to your app’s needs, encompassing automated testing tools, performance testing utilities, and usability assessment software.

• Begin Early and Test Regularly

Initiate testing in the early stages of development and maintain a consistent testing regimen throughout the process. Early and frequent testing facilitates the early detection of issues, making rectification more manageable and cost-effective.

• Testing Across Multiple Platforms

In today’s diverse landscape of devices and operating systems, ensuring seamless performance across various platforms is paramount. Once the supported OS versions are identified, a crucial phase involves device selection for testing. Employing emulators alongside physical devices can optimize testing costs while delivering exceptional outcomes.

Utilizing the capabilities offered by a cloud-based solution such as LambdaTest proves immensely beneficial. LambdaTest, an AI-powered test orchestration and execution platform, empowers developers and testers to conduct automated and manual tests on web applications spanning over 3000 browsers, devices, and OS variations.

This resource enables quality assurance teams to execute thorough testing on genuine mobile devices, ensuring the functionality of their mobile apps across a wide spectrum of authentic devices with confidence and reliability.

• Validate Across Multiple Devices

Verify your app’s functionality on various devices and operating systems to ensure compatibility and proper performance across diverse platforms.

• Employ Real-User Scenarios

Incorporate genuine user scenarios during testing to replicate real-world interactions, ensuring that the app functions as users would expect.

• Perform Usability Testing

Conduct comprehensive usability evaluations to ascertain the app’s user-friendliness, including assessments of navigation, user interface, and overall user experience.

• Assess Performance

Evaluate the app’s performance across different scenarios, such as varying network speeds and diverse device configurations, to ensure optimal functionality.

• Prioritize Security Testing

Ensure the app’s security by thoroughly examining vulnerabilities like potential data breaches, hacking risks, and other security threats.

• Engage Stakeholders

Involve various stakeholders—developers, testers, designers, and users—in the testing process. This collaborative approach ensures comprehensive testing coverage and early issue identification.

• Implement Continuous Testing

Embrace a culture of continuous testing, conducting tests consistently throughout the development lifecycle—from initial stages to deployment and beyond—to ensure ongoing enhancements and improvements.

By adopting these strategies, mobile app development teams can navigate through robust testing procedures, leading to refined, reliable, and user-centric applications.

Common Errors to Avoid During Mobile App Testing

• Ambiguity on App Purpose

Avoid initiating tests without understanding the app’s intended purpose, target users, user expectations, and managerial objectives. Answering critical questions about the app’s goals before commencing QA activities is essential.

• Overwhelming Test Scopes

Resist the temptation to test everything simultaneously due to stringent release schedules. Prioritize critical components and test them first, recognizing the limitations of exhaustive testing within tight timelines.

• Sole Reliance on Emulators and Simulators

Refrain from relying solely on emulators and simulators for testing, as they inadequately replicate device functions. Testing on real mobile devices from diverse manufacturers and OS versions is indispensable for conclusive results in compatibility and performance, ideally through a real device cloud.

• Overemphasis on UI Alone

While the UI is pivotal, avoid exclusively focusing on it. Vigorously scrutinize APIs and backend services as well. An excellent UI loses significance if backend weaknesses cause frequent app crashes.

• Lack of Planning

Avoid proceeding without a structured plan. Determine which features to test in each sprint, prepare test scripts, and clearly define expected results. Given the complexity of modern apps, comprehensive testing necessitates a well-organized and systematic approach.

Considerations for Agile Mobile App Development Projects

In the current landscape of agile methodologies, certain factors hold heightened significance, focusing on increased adaptability, heightened preparedness, and expedited time-to-market.

Here are pivotal considerations for app testing in agile environments:

• Optimal Test Environment

In mobile app testing, validating app functionality on authentic devices is preferred for real-world validation. However, acquiring numerous physical devices might impede agile deadlines. Cloud-based access to multiple devices becomes a viable solution, although it has performance testing limitations. Balancing physical and cloud resources while strategizing test cases is essential.

• Development and Testing Synchronization

Seamless alignment between development and testing is critical. Regular meetings and communication channels aid in tracking code modifications and bug fixes, optimizing continuous integration tools, and source code management for agile projects.

• Early and Efficient QA

Collaboration between QA professionals and Business Analysts ensures clear user story definitions, enabling precise test planning. Early development of basic test cases facilitates validation before user adoption, aligning with agile project iteration deadlines.

• Mobile App Testing Strategy in Agile Projects

Agile methodology accentuates quicker releases and increased flexibility but restricts the testing timeframe. Integrating the following aspects strengthens the mobile app testing strategy within agile contexts:

• Early Testing Commencement

Even without separate QA or staging environments, initiating testing at the sprint’s early stage yields preliminary insights for timely adjustments.

• Development-Testing Alignment

Robust communication channels enhance team awareness about ongoing developments and testing changes, utilizing tools for code check-ins and bug tracking.

• Infrastructure Readiness

Sufficient availability of real devices and simulators is crucial. A stable test environment pre-sign-off should be ensured to prevent issues.

• Exploratory Testing Integration

Incorporating experts for exploratory testing efficiently pinpoint application problem areas, aiding in focused testing.

• Automation Testing Embrace

Early initiation of test automation enables a focus on critical business-centric features, prioritizing a scalable automation framework adaptable across iterations.

These considerations optimize mobile app testing in agile projects, aligning with accelerated development and robust quality assurance.

Conclusion

The strategy acts as a cohesive force, aligning the team’s efforts toward achieving optimal quality and performance for your mobile application. Therefore, creating a comprehensive and forward-looking strategy document for mobile app testing is important.

In essence, a mobile app testing strategy is an anchor for a ship, guiding its path and ensuring a secure and successful journey towards its destination.