Quality Assurance (QA) is an integral part of the mobile application development lifecycle.
It is an effective way to prevent mistakes and defects in mobile applications and avoid problems when delivering to customers.
To ensure the successful development of any app, QA measures are to be implemented in all stages of app development — from creating the initial concept, test specifications, product release to even product updates. Quality assurance is also key to post-development reviews.
But it can be hard to know where to start testing your mobile apps. Simply follow the 7 easy steps below for better QA testing.
When the development process is almost complete, you must figure out what you’re trying to achieve and what constraints you have.
Questions to ask before testing (testing prerequisites):
Does the app interact with other apps?
Are all the features functional?
Is the app testing limited to front-end?
Does it include back-end testing as well?
What is the compatibility with multiple networks?
How frequently data/space based on usage?
How is the load handled?
Does any change in phone status affect the application flow?
You need to know your app inside out to start planning on the test cases and procedures. If you do not have an extensive testing team or sufficient devices, you may approach a third-party professional testing service. On an extra note, you have to communicate with your development team about their roles and your expectations beforehand during the initial stages.
Once you know your app inside out, you will be clear with your testing needs, there are various testing types such as functional, usability, compatibility, performance, security, and more.
You’ll have to decide on which devices to test on and what functional requirements should be tested. Popular Android & iOS devices that reflects high market user coverage are preferred. After all, it also depends on your business’s scalability and target market.
Recommendations:
Enterprise : Android Top 150 Devices + iOS Top 80 Devices
Medium Company: Android Top 100 Devices + iOS Top 80 Devices
Small Business: Android Top 100 Devices + iOS Top 50 Devices
Important tip: Real devices are always better than emulators as they operate under real conditions. Many companies do offer cloud-hosted remote device access connected to real devices, such as Testin. You can start testing your app from the comfort of one-click. It would be a good alternative for small-medium enterprises with a lower budget.
Prepare a test case document for each and every feature/ functionality.
In addition to functional test cases, some special cases should also be considered:
Battery Usage, Loading Speed, Data Usage, Memory Usage
It’s equally important to determine which combination of manual and automation testing you’ll be running. Prepare separate suites for manual test cases and automated test scripts as required. Identify any reusable automation scripts and modify them as per the project requirements.
Many testers would feel in a hopeless tangle when doing test cases and scripts, especially when working with a small team. A third-party testing service provider like Testin could be an extension of your testing & development team.
A good app comes down to its ‘functional’ functions. To perform functional testing, you may choose to execute either or both manual and automation testing.
App functionality should be fully tested, with special consideration is given to installation, updates, sign-up and login, provisioning, device-specific functions, and error messages.
A reliable, functional testing solution needs to handle the increasing complexity of mobile applications. Functional Testing is fundamental for mobile applications, as it verifies that the mobile application works as defined.
Keep in mind that functional testing should include testing all application features and not be focused solely on these areas.
In addition to functional testing, you can consider running the following tests:
Installation test
Upgrades testing
Operational testing
Sign-up and Login
Provisioning
Device-specific functions
Error messages
Low-level resource testing: memory usage, auto-deletion, etc
Services testing: both on- and offline
After identifying and creating test cases and scripts, start a test run on few devices to ensure that there are no breakages especially before automation testing. If the test run is completed without errors, you may start scaling through.
Usability Testing
Now that basic functions are tested, it’s time to evaluate whether the mobile application is user-friendly and provides a satisfactory user experience. You may approach a crowdsourced testing method or asking in-house employees for a brief insight into app user experience.
Compatibility Testing
In terms of compatibility, the lack of devices has always been a big challenge for testers.
Mobile app testing is not the same as software testing. Devices vary between platforms, models, and operating system versions. It’s essential to select a subset of devices that are relevant to your application.
User Interface Testing
It is the duty of a QA tester to ensure that the application has a user-friendly interface. Screen resolution, touch screens, trackballs, hard keys, shorts, and more are all considered in this step. Not forgetting menu options, buttons, bookmarks, history, settings, and even the navigation flow of the application.
External Factor Testing
Mobile device applications must also contend with interactions and interruptions from other device features like various network connection types, SD cards, phone calls, and assorted device settings.
Accessibility Testing
Mobile devices have a diverse demographic of users so it is important to ensure that your application is widely accessible.
Security and data privacy is really important nowadays. Most users demand that their data and information is secure and private. However, security testing is optional depending on your app requirements. For example, it may be more important for financial apps to be secure as compared to a food recipe app.
To validate an app’s security, you may test it through SQL injection, data dumps, session hijacking, packet sniffing, and SSL.
As such, it’s essential to test your mobile application’s sensitive data storage, and how your application behaves under various device permission schemes.
In addition to encrypting usernames and passwords, ask yourself the following questions:
Does the application have security certificates?
Does it make use of secure network protocols?
Are there any restrictions such as the number of login attempts prior to users being locked out?
Testin also provides security testing services for applications, equipped with ISO certifications and industry qualified security personnel.
Test Summary Report
The entire end-to-end mobile application testing process should be recorded for future records. Double check that this is done and then create your final report.
This report should include:
Important information uncovered by the tests conducted
Quality of testing effort
Quality of the mobile application
Statistics derived from incident reports
Different types of testing performed, and time taken for each of them
It should also indicate if:
- the mobile application is fit for use
- it meets all the acceptance criteria
Testing is tough. By tailoring these test phases to each app being developed — and meticulously carrying out every step — you’re guaranteed to end up with a fully functioning app.
Once the app testing is complete, coding tweaks and fixes are done to fix the errors, the final version of the app will be made available to the public.
By implementing a good testing process creates a firm foundation during your app development process. With a systematic and efficient development from the start, your app will meet industry QA standards and be more confident with your app before and after release-to-market.
Happy Testing!
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