Mobile App Testing 101: Best Practices for Flawless Performance

In the contemporary society where mobility is highly valued, mobile applications are central in how companies interact with the customers. However a mobile app’s appraises majorly depends on how efficient the app is on the differing devices and in the different systems. Testing is an important step in development of both applications and games that help check for reliability, performance and users’ satisfaction. This article discusses how to make your Mobile Apps Testing 101, steps to produce mobile applications that has no flaw and the part of mobile app testing companies.

Why Is Mobile App Testing Important?

Mobile app testing is important now because it confirms that an application performs successfully on various hardware platforms, operating systems, and on different connection parameters. With different specifications of smart devices and varied expectations among users, a cross-browser functional testing should be carried out in order to eliminate vital bugs that would make users uninstall the app.

Mobile app testing helps:

It’s better to debug the app before letting it in front of users.

Make sure that your app runs smoothly on both mobile devices and tablets.

Ensure that the application is developed to fit the user’s needs, wants and demands in terms of operations and efficiency.

Support multi-platform applications and be unaffected by the changes in the operating system or the network environment.

To ensure that the app has a good standing in the market, refrain from having poor reception from customers resultant from poor performance of he application.

Often, mobile app testing companies assume this role to guarantee the releases of quality apps to businesses.

Key Types of Mobile App Testing

1. Functional Testing

Functionality is the basic level of software testing which guarantees the proper functioning of the app. This type of testing is centered on the behavior of the application in response to the users’ actions, the features, and their expected characteristics.

Best Practices:

First of all, test the basic functionalities – login, interface, and any controls on the website.

Make sure that all the buttons, menus and links on the site are properly working and coded.

It also crucial to harness the app to see how users can engage with it by testing it in real conditions.

2. Usability Testing

Usability testing determines how versatile the app is meaning how easily users able to use it. Functionality of application is one thing but at the same time the concept of the app must be easy to navigate, not cluttered and its users sequences must be intuitive.

Best Practices:

Get real users for a test to determine the products’ ease of navigation, their style and how easy they are to use.

This means that navigation for the user must be such that they are able to achieve what they want to do without having to go through extraneous steps.

Heatmaps and screen recordings should be used to define areas where a user has difficulty or just simply leaves.

3. Performance Testing

Stress testing determines the capability of the app in providing a performance under certain conditions such as numerous concurrent users, low battery, and slow network connection. It also ensures that app is responsive, very fast, and does not hang often or has frequent crashes.

Best Practices:

Load-test, as in stressing the application and making many users attempt to access it at the same time.

Track the speed at which the app is being downloaded, the time it takes for the app to launch and start responding as well as the amount of resources the app consumes.

This should also be tested for different networks like 3G, 4G, WIFI and others in other to see how it will perform.

4. Compatibility Testing

Due to the tight coupling of devices, operating systems, and size of screen the compatibility play a vital role. This form of testing helps to guarantee that the app functions as required when introduced into different environments that it is expected to run.

Best Practices:

To ensure the directed app is responsive to screen size and resolution, test it on multiple devices.

Make sure that it will run on as many iOS and Android versions as possible.

Recall that you can use emulation software or cloud services for creating virtual test environment for many devices at the same time.

5. Security Testing

Security testing helps to make sure that the insecure data of the users are not susceptible to being hacked when they use the app. This is why data security should always be more of a concern; it is more so now than ever before, especially in an age where privacy is increasingly becoming a concern.

Best Practices:

Carry out vulnerability assessment for any organization this will inform one of the possible weaknesses that might be exploited by a malicious attacker.

Run tests to check whether the data stored by the application is secure or not, whether the communication between the application and the user happens to be secure or not and if the login details are secured or not.

Comply with security standards and policies commonly used today such as GDPR.

6. Automated Testing

Automated testing is the utilization of testing tools and scripts which automate testing of repeated tasks hence making the testing process to be more efficient. Regression testing is one of the areas that can benefit from automation as a result of constant updates that have to be tested against many scenarios.

Best Practices:

Perform foreground automation by tapping tasks like login, filling forms, and navigating to a new page.

Employ Appium or Selenium tools so as to perform cross-platform testing of the software.

The handing of both manual and automated testing can be used for the desired coverage.

7. Regression Testing

It is a process that helps maintain that new updates or changes made to that application does not come with new faults or errors to existing capabilities. This kind of testing is important since apps are always developed with new features and enhancements.

Best Practices:

• Regression test as often as possible whenever new code is developed or modified so as not to compromise on the previous tests.
• Special attention should be paid to the app parts that are updated often or did cause problems before.
• Apportion employ the use of automated tools in order to facilitate regression testing.

Best Practices for Flawless Mobile App Performance

1. Test Early and Continuously

One of the best approaches to the testing of mobile apps is to test when developing the app and testing all through the process. Preventive detection of bugs requires less time and effort to be invested since it does not wait for the bug to cause a lot of damage that will be very expensive for the developer.

2. Use Real Devices as Much as Possible

Testing on emulators and simulators is desirable during the first phase of the development but testing on devices offers more realistic results. Real devices provide a near real environment to the actual scenario and are useful in identifying problems that are hard to come by in emulators.

Tip: Currently, most of the mobile app testing companies provide the option of obtaining access to device labs containing many devices for testing purposes allowing teams to test apps on actual real devices.

3. Both Manual & Automated Testing:

Manual testing enables the testers to make real user experiences to be able to figure out the possibility of usability problems. Thus automated testing is perfect for repetitive testing and regression testing is done much faster and accurately.

Tip: Equal and proper amalgamation of both of the methods will provide the best results so that there will be no area left untested in different testing cases.

4. Check How an App Performs

The third the conclusion is that it is possible to identify performance issues that deteriorate the application and lead to users’ disengagement. Long loading time or game’s crash and high battery usage will result in poor rating and game uninstallation.

Performance Tips:

Optimize their usage of resource such as CPU, memory and battery life.

However, you can improve loading time through reduction of the picture size, minimizing the number of times the server needs to be called upon, and storing some elements such as images.

General aimed at consistent operation and fast performances in all seen network circumstances.

5. Prioritize Security

Because of these growing concerns on data protection and privacy, having security testing as the priority is advisable. Make sure user information is protected and access to such data is secure along with storage of key/post sensitive information.

Tip: Outsourcing to experienced Mobile App Testing companies will always assure that good strict security measures are applied and well tested.

6. Test Across Different Network Conditions

It is also essential to conduct the testing under the different type of the networks, for example Wi-Fi, 3G or 4G. This assists in the indication to the user that the app is optimized to do well regardless of his or her network status.

Tip: The first one is the use of tools that allow the development and testing of the app under different network conditions: switching between networks, or poor connection.

7. Perform Beta Testing

When developing this app, it might be pertinent to conduct a user trial for a limited period so as to gauge the impressions of the real users before officially launching the product into the market. As with ordinary users, beta testers can give important information regarding to bugs, difficulty during usage of the product or during a certain game, and the product’s performance under actual use.

Tip: There are many mobile app testing firms out there whose service enables businesses to conduct beta testing to get valuable feedback from users.

Conclusion

Mobile app testing is the final stage in the development process that provides the significant assurance of the app and the level of satisfaction the user will experience while using the app. Here, I have explained the best practices followed by companies that can help to catch bugs, optimize and make their applications compatible across various devices.

Whether you are a new company venturing in the business world for the first time or you are an experienced firm venturing in a new market with a new product, hiring the services of mobile app testing companies would greatly benefit your company as this will help you to establish that your firm has a tested and launched product. Such companies have experience, device laboratories, as well as tools that allow for efficient testing and the achievement of high results.