Our lives are now dominated by mobile phones and software. Around 1500 apps are delivered every day.
There are too many mobile app options for customers. Your app must be tested thoroughly to ensure its success.
Some important things are missed by software development companies, even though they ensure their apps are thoroughly tested before releasing them to production. These minor issues can have a significant
This blog will help you avoid common mistakes and pitfalls that could harm your app’s reception.
We will also explain the nuances of mobile app testing errors and provide a guide to avoid them. Each misstep, from ignoring device diversity to ignoring security protocols, can be disastrous for the success of an app.
What is Mobile App Testing?
Mobile Application Testing is the process that validates a mobile application (Android, iOS) before its release to the public. Mobile app testing helps verify if the app meets expected technical and business needs.
Teams must test mobile apps on various screen resolutions, OS versions, and network bandwidths. This ensures that the app will perform flawlessly on different device configurations once released to the public.
Testing mobile apps involves the following at a high level:
i) Test your app’s performance on different OS versions, such as Android 7.0 and 8.0.
ii) Appearance of apps in Portrait and Landscape modes
iii) Validating app compatibility and performance on specific settings
iv) Test if the app is compatible with mobile sensors such as Gyroscopes, Accelerometers, GPS, etc.
v) Test the GUI of your app (menus, navigation buttons, dropdown menus, etc.) to ensure the functionality.
Why is Mobile App Testing Important?
The goal of mobile app development is to reach more people around the world. Users are less likely to use an app that is difficult to use or has bugs. No business wants their customers to switch from one app to another.
There is a high chance that users will encounter critical bugs in their mobile app if it has yet to be thoroughly tested. This can lead to a poor user experience for new users. Remember that the first impression is crucial for any mobile application.
Unexpected app crashes or bugs can cause an app to be uninstalled immediately. It also leads to the loss of revenue and potential customers.
Common Mobile App Testing Mistakes
1) Understand the Goal Before Testing
Testing mobile apps requires understanding the MVP, MVC, and MVVM patterns. The QA team can improve testing by working with developers from the beginning of the project and learning about the technology that will be used to build the mobile application. You need to know the purpose of an application to learn. Before you begin testing, define your goal.
It is essential to consider this challenge first because, without it, you could create tests that do not accurately evaluate the app’s requirements.
Before starting a project, developers and testers should establish business goals. This will give them a better idea of the testing and development processes to be used in the future. This not only reduces the time but also the effort and helps achieve better coverage of tests.
2) Testing everything without priorities
This is a common practice among testers, who test all possible scenarios without giving them any priority. This can lead to testing delays because some designs may be similar. Prioritizing methods and tests based on requirements and importance will streamline your testing process.
Prioritizing test cases is essential when it comes to regression tests. Regression testing ensures that any changes to the software haven’t affected existing functionality. When creating your regression testing suite, ensure that you include all test cases for major functionalities in an application.
Regression testing is usually used in many test cases that take much time to execute. What if there needs to be more time to run all the tests to ensure an app has full functionality? You need to prioritize the test cases at this stage.
3) Web Testing Vs. Mobile Testing
In many companies, the QA department works with mobile and web applications. Mobile app testing is different from other types of testing. It is essential to understand that a mobile app differs from a website app.
Mobile users are on the go rather than sitting in front of a computer station at a specific location. Web applications are designed for larger screens, while mobile applications are optimized to fit smaller screens. You should also consider other factors if you have moved from web to mobile testing.
4) Lack of Device Coverage
App testing is a significant challenge in the highly fragmented mobile market. It is common for testers to overlook new and older devices.
Even though this is a challenge, testing your app on various mobile devices is essential. This will ensure that you cover all devices, including iPhones and iPads. Try to concentrate on those that your audience is most likely to use.
You can enhance the coverage of your device testing by using a cloud-based platform. LambdaTest mobile device lab Cloud-based platforms eliminate the need to manually test a variety of Android and iOS phones with different operating systems. Cloud-based device test service allows you to run automated and manual tests on your hybrid, native, and mobile web apps.
5) Avoiding UI/UX testing at an early stage
Usability testing should be done earlier in the testing process. This is a huge mistake. UI/UX is the user’s first impression of an application and should be thoroughly tested. Usability testing is, therefore, best done at the wireframing stage to ensure that all elements are in their correct places, communicating to users, and giving responses from the system.
Prototyping tools can be used to speed up and simplify user interface testing. These tools allow developers to create code by design. Prototypes are used to test the accuracy and suitability of design solutions before they are transferred to developers.
6) Avoiding Network Testing
Due to the rapid growth of data traffic and the unreliability of networks, mobile apps working in client-server mode are faced with connectivity issues. Mobile apps must be able to work on various networks, such as Wi-Fi or 4G networks.
Testers should ensure that each mobile app is subjected to rigorous testing scenarios that include “variability” and other performance factors. Manually testing mobile applications on different networks can be difficult because you cannot test the behavior of an app for all networks from one location.
Testers can use network emulators to address this challenge. Network emulators let you create realistic scenarios similar to those in real networks. This includes generating methods with high latency and low bandwidth, data loss, errors, jitter or jittering, and situations with high latency and data loss. This can all be done without any devices or cables.
7) Lack of Security Testing
Often, testers need to remember to perform security tests during the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). The “Waterfall” methodology was the most popular in the past. Testing comes after the development of software/modules. Most companies adopted agile methodologies as software development matured. This required testers to work with developers within defined sprints.
Here are some steps you can take to ensure security during SDLC.
Perform a Risk Assessment of the components of the application. Risk assessment depends on many factors, including whether or not the application can be accessed via the Internet and the type of data the application stores and processes.
Security Requirements must be identified when functional requirements are listed at the start of a cycle.
Threat modeling should be done as architecture and design progress. The four steps of threat modeling are identification, enumeration, prioritization of threats, and initial handling.
The refinement of a Security Architecture follows the threat modeling phase. This is a threat model element. This is the stage where secure coding guidelines and security testing are clarified.
All security requirements must be stored within the ALM system, where testers and developers can access them to ensure tight integration.
How To Avoid These Mistakes?
Testing is crucial to controlling churn. Users expect that your app will work smoothly without any performance problems. If it does not, then they will uninstall it.
1) Testing On Multiple Devices
You do not control the device from which the user accesses the app. What works flawlessly on one device may only work on one device. You should test your app across multiple devices. Maintaining an in-house collection of instruments is difficult, especially with the increasing number of new devices released yearly.
LambdaTest is a cloud-based platform for test execution that allows you to perform automated and live tests on over 3000 devices. Choose to test your app using our virtual platform or cloud of real instruments. You can replicate any bug or issue on any device by accessing multiple devices.
2) Localization And Geolocation Testing
Relevant notifications are another reason for high churn. What is suitable for one location may not be ideal for another. With LambdaTest’s localization feature and Geolocation, you can customize the experience for your users and test the app in over 50 countries.
3) Test Use Cases
Users often need help with long sign-up procedures and lengthy use cases. Users prefer mobile apps to desktop applications or other alternatives because they can accomplish tasks faster. LambdaTest allows you to test different use cases and optimize them.
4) Memory Consumption And Network Throttling
This allows you to test your app on any device immediately. You can then optimize your storage by optimizing the memory that it consumes. You can test publicly available apps and update them with subsequent releases to maximize storage.
A tester must also test the app’s functionality on networks with varying latency, such as 2G/3G/4G/LTE. LambdaTest lets you simulate network conditions and get insights into the upload and download speed variations. This helps you better understand how the app performs on different networks.
End Note
In light of the technological advancements, it is essential to have a future-proof testing process for mobile apps. You may use different devices or environments tomorrow.
With a future-proof strategy, you can adopt new testing methods to meet recent trends and requirements.
Your device library and testing platform should also be updated with the new devices released yearly. Maintaining an on-prem device library that includes an extensive list is expensive.
LambdaTest is a simple and cost-effective way to solve this problem. Start testing your application on the cloud.
