We are thrilled to feature a blog post from one of our esteemed guests, Mirza Sisic. Mirza, a Senior Test Analyst, has shared his expert insights on mobile testing and technology. In this blog article, you can find invaluable recommendations on the key factors to consider when testing mobile applications.
By implementing this blog post’s recommendations, software testers can ensure that their testing efforts are comprehensive, resulting in high-quality mobile applications. Don't miss out on this opportunity to learn from Mirza's expertise. Check out the blog post on mobile testing and stay tuned for more valuable contributions from our guest writers.
Introduction
Even though mobile devices, such as smartphones, have become very common and highly accessible, testing such devices requires a bit of specialization in the software testing industry. One of the reasons is that most modern web applications are optimized to run well on smaller mobile devices; most testers that I know have primarily worked on web applications, and only a small minority have been testers for mobile apps. In this article, we will cover some of the most notable specifics related to mobile testing. So let’s dig into it!
Device fragmentation
There is a vast number of smartphone brands out in the wild; this can cause situations where users on newer phones can have an application functioning flawlessly, and users with older phones face numerous issues. For this reason, it’s important to research your targeted user base to determine which devices need more attention during development and testing.
OS fragmentation
A lot of different OS versions can mean issues specific only to certain OS versions - a similar problem as with device fragmentation. Users with older versions of mobile operating systems may experience degraded performance and various issues; due to this, it’s important to test your app on different OS versions.
Different screen sizes
A vast variety of screen sizes can affect the app’s look and behavior since a single app might be optimized for a common smartphone or typical tablet resolution, unexpected issues can occur when users are on a device with non-standard resolution devices, such as very small phones (4” or smaller) or on a larger tablet, over 12”. Again, it’s important to know your targeted market and have some insight into the most used screen sizes.
Manufacturer fragmentation
Manufacturers can have customized OS versions, and device specs vary. For instance, a custom version of Android may not work well with an app that is designed for a specific brand. Also, manufacturers can differ greatly in performance, where users with low-end phones can have trouble using our app.
Localization
For the application intended to be used in more than one region or multi-lingual countries. As most apps are used worldwide, localization testing becomes more and more important for mobile testing. This includes checking local time formats, currencies, languages, and a lot more.
Different app types
Native, web, and hybrid all have their pros & cons and uniqueness. Web apps, or progressive web apps, can behave very similarly to native phone apps but are just websites with shiny features. Native apps are the most performant but most expensive to develop, and hybrid are a mix of those two worlds, like truly native apps get downloaded and installed from app stores but are developed using tools similar to the web, such as React Native, which can mean faster development times.
User mobility
Access to the same or similar telecommunication services at different places. What happens when the user is aboard with roaming activated if they have no internet or poor connection speed, how will our app behave? It’s important to stimulate these conditions while testing.
Mobile network operators
Different operators offer different plans, affecting mobile internet speeds as well as the fact that they provide different coverage in different locations, which impacts the quality and speed of service. We need to take this into account as well for our mobile testing efforts.
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Testing tools
Many choices make it harder to find the right tool(s) for your app. We need to know how a tool integrates with existing tools, such as application life-cycle management (like Jira), and how it integrates with a testing framework we are using. We also need to check if tools have reported error-capturing and debugging capabilities - depending on the type of mobile testing tools. Does the tool support continuous testing? Is there support for different testing approaches? How does it work with real physical mobile devices, etc.?
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Conclusion
While mobile testing can be more demanding than testing web applications, with an adequate level of awareness, you can still become good at mobile testing in a reasonable amount of time. This is especially true for people with existing software testing experience, as a lot of high-level skills will carry over. Just note what’s unique to the mobile testing space and keep up to date with mobile testing tooling to get the most out of it. Happy testing!
About our Guest Author
Mirza Sisic: Mirza has always been a technology geek, helping friends and family with computer-related issues. Started originally in tech support in 2014 and moved to software testing in 2017, and has been there since. Mirza worked as a freelance web developer for a while as well. When he’s not sharing memes online, Mirza is usually learning new things, writing posts for the blog, and being an active member of the testing community.
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