Quality assurance is a very vital and important part of the mobile app development / Android, iOS life cycle. It offers many advantages in making a successful personalized app. For one, it boost productivity exponentially and eliminate many complications during the development stage. (In fact, it goes hand-in-hand with critical proceedings during the development cycle.)
And as a matter of fact, no successful app will undergo developmental stage and is put on app stores without making sure standard testing has not been carried out. So you cannot skip this process. It should be done properly. But before you do mobile app testing, it is important to know the best practices to employ.
With that in mind, you should take a bolder step and explore 6 exceptional practices for mobile testing discussed below.
1. Identify your target customers’ expectations accurately and try to also incorporate other prospects’ needs too.
High user expectations is one of the major difficulty the mobile app world face. Usually, people who use mobile devices expect much more from these devices (and apps) than their counterpart – web or desktop versions. That is why it is practically impossible to design and develop an app without knowing what your customers expect down to the last detail. To do this effectively, you will have to make a proper documentation of these expectations. This is the only way you will be able to do it appropriately. Or at least, it is one of the best ways to go about it. And if you could surpass these expectations, this is even better.
But there is one key question that has not been answered yet. What information do you need to collect? To answer it, it is proper to start with age, gender, device usage habit, and other relevant demographic information. This will help you to know your target customers before the mobile app development / Android, iOS stage begins. As you can clearly see, it would be a huge mistake to start things off without getting their information first because you need it to understand usage pattern that will help you to create more functional apps.
So, it is pertinent to thoroughly understand your prospects more. You can even kick it up a notch by conducting interviews, and add thorough market research to the list.
2. Carry out tests on different data networks
It is true that the functionalities of apps could easily be affected by various data networks. So after you are done with the mobile app development / Android, iOS stage, make sure that you carry out tests on various data networks multiple times to other to be sure that the apps are very responsive. Do not shy away on the fact that your “well-built” app might show serious signs of inefficiency on some networks. This is to say that some apps cannot stand network transition, especially to a slower net. For example, there could be a network transition from 4G to EDGE or 2G networks when the apps are running. This could seriously affect its functionalities. So you have to test for this.
However, many apps do not require an internet connection once they are downloaded and installed successfully. In this case, it will be pointless to carry out tests on different data network once the mobile app development / Android, iOS stage is over. So you will have to skip this one if your app does not need it.
3. Use standard test methods
Many developers follow their own protocol during their mobile app development / Android, iOS. It makes them more organize, faster, which will definitely increase efficiency. And when it comes to mobile testing, it is much better to use standard test methods and stick with them all the way through this process.
So what are the standard test methods you should use? It involves techniques such as equivalence classes, boundary values, acceptance criteria, and different coverage types.
4. Test early and test often
At this point, it is important to add this to the list. it is not advisable to wait until the whole mobile app development / Android, iOS process is complete before you run your standard tests. This could make things unnecessarily complicated and make your life much more harder. So has the development reach logical stage? Run a test. And continue this process occasionally as you continue.
5. Automate testing protocol
Practically everything that could be automate is being automated. The same applies for testing protocol even though the mobile app development / Android, iOS is done manually, in most part anyway.
That being said, you can increase efficiency and productivity with test automation. With it, you can greatly reduce the time it will take to run different stage of the testing processes.
6. Distribute testing effort across your team
Division of labor increases efficiency and makes the whole process more faster. So if you have a team, it is better to distribute the mobile testing effort across the whole team. This will not only make it go at a faster rate, but also increase quality control in the whole process.
In all, mobile testing can be seen as a solution to common problem — How to produce robust, reliable, and high-quality software. And depending of the size of the application and project, you should expect ROI if you integrate test automation to the developmental stage.
