We are getting smarter and so are our phones. Smartphones of today are more powerful than the PCs that sent the first humans to moon in 1969! We can carry our entire digital world with us thanks to smartphones small enough to fit in our pockets. Mobile apps of today lets you connect with anyone, anywhere in the world. Additionally, mobile apps are much easier to use and is a more private way to consume information. With the booming app industry, there is a growing emphasis on app quality. Like with evolution, only the fittest apps survive.
Challenges in Mobile App Testing
With more than a billion apps in Apple store and Google play store, how do you ensure, that your app stands out from the crowd. When competition is so high, the benchmark expected for app quality is super high as well.
One glitch and you lose the user’s interest. It’s easy to uninstall an app you hate and replace it with a new better app in a matter of seconds. Poor app quality will not only drive away existing customers, but it will also discourage new users from trying it out. Defects in app can cost you a lot of time and money. No brand wants to be branded as the brand with the buggy app. When bugs can cost you so much in revenue and reputation, it stands to reason, that investing in a smart app testing strategy can save you a lot of trouble.
Choosing The Right App Testing Strategy
As app quality is an integral part of success for the modern enterprise, the primary issue to be addressed is the strategy for app testing to be adopted. It is crucial to invest in a holistic testing strategy that is fast and cost-effective to understand the app’s behavior in real life conditions. How do you aid your development team to improve App quality without exceeding your testing budget? The answer lies in addressing the key factors that impact your app quality.
Factors To Consider For Mobile App Testing
Mobile testing strategy should cover testing aspects for functionality, performance, network, security, usability, installation, provisioning and compatibility. Based on your target group, you can identify the critical aspects to be tested. The scope of testing further depends on the type and purpose of your app. The key factors to consider includes the following:
- Critical Features
- Target Group
- Number of Releases
- Devices
- OS
- Availability Of QA Resources
Further, quality assurance is not restricted to the launch of the app. For implementing continuous improvements, equipping your development team with regular testing insights is essential. Users will expect new features and upgrades as per trends. If you don’t want your app to be left behind, it is worthwhile to invest in upgrading your app and also in additional testing for each upgrade.
Based on the factors that impact your mobile app quality and your project requirements, you can plan and implement a testing strategy to make your app a winner in the market. Again, your testing strategy will vary at different stages of the development cycle.
Key Limitations Of Traditional Testing Methods
Unlike traditional web app testing, mobile app testing is pretty complex and challenging. You need test environments that replicate the real world environment with real users on real devices. Further, many factors out in the open can create unusual scenarios. For example, internet bandwidth impacts your app quality. Based on how good or bad the internet connection is, application behaviour will be different for different users. Also, you also need to ensure that the updates you release work well in different OS versions. While ensuring the releases are fast, you have to make sure that they are easy to upgrade as well.
Using traditional testing mechanisms to cover all the aspects of mobile app is not only expensive but also difficult. Testing on real devices can never be replicated by emulators. Trying to get all the real devices in-house will cost you a bomb. Further, it is difficult to reproduce the fluctuating conditions like network issues and location in a lab.
Cost-Effective Mobile App Testing Strategies
With crowd testing, you can test your software applications in real world scenarios to ensure that they work as per your expectations. Further, you can get valuable insights from a target audience perspective.
With access to a diverse testing team you get a fresh perspective on your app. You can use on-demand crowdsourced QA team as & when you need it. By testing in real world scenarios on real devices, you can gain real insights to help your product team improve the app features.
Benefits of Crowd Testing Platforms
1) Access global community of testers
Relying on the expertise of professional testers through crowdsourced platform makes it easier to manage test cycles. Experts in testing domain can help plan and execute your entire testing strategy to meet the app quality goals. They can help identify and implement test cycles for testing core app features.
2) Coverage across devices and geographies
You can ensure your app’s success on different devices, on different platforms and configurations everywhere, every time by using crowd testing.
3) Boost development
With crowd testing, you can align your testing efforts with your development process. This will equip your development team with useful insights to improve the app. With insightful reports & data, you can make your app more powerful.
4) Fast & cost-effective
With an on-demand global work force, you can scale your testing efforts. You can reduce time to market and get accurate results minus the hassles of investing in a full-time QA.
Thus, crowd testing makes your mobile app testing fast, simple and cost-effective.
99tests crowd testing platform helps Flipkart in the successful launch of their mobile app
Mail us at sales@99tests.com to learn more about crowd sourced app testing services. Find out how crowd sourced testing from 99tests enabled Flipkart, India’s leading online retailer in building a successful e-commerce mobile app.
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